How safe is biological therapy in chronic inflammatory arthritis?

Biological therapy can result in negative side effects but these are not likely to be serious for most people with inflammatory arthritis, says research in the European Journal of Rheumatology.

We know that biological therapies have transformed the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis but some safety concerns continue to exist.

So scientists investigated 362 people with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis who were on biological therapies.

“Over half of the patients with arthropathies on biological therapy can suffer adverse effect during treatment but only 8.5% of these effects are serious,” the scientists outline. “Special vigilance must be paid to patients with a higher number of comorbidities because they are more likely to experience serious adverse effects.”

Click here to read the original findings. 

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