RA Drugs found to work better when delivered directly to the nervous system

In September of 2006, Dr. Gary Firestein and his colleagues at the University of California San Diego released findings that suggest rheumatoid arthritis drugs work better, at least in arthritic rats, when delivered into the central nervous system (CNS). This report was published in the international open-access medical journal PLoS Medicine.

Firestein et al.'s report focused on a protein called p38, which is involved in a number of cellular processes critical to the development of RA. Based on the observation by other scientists that p38 is activated in the CNS in response to peripheral pain, the researchers blocked p38 in rat test subjects with drugs directly delivered to the spinal cord. They found that the treated rats experienced substantially less inflammation, arthritis, and joint destruction, compared with rats that had undergone the same treatment but received no active drug. Subcutaneous treatments (those given directly under the skin) of arthritic rats with the same amount of drugs were found to have none of the beneficial effects on the joints.

The team stated that these findings suggest that spinal cord administration might reduce the side effects (and possibly the costs) of p38 inhibitors without compromising the benefits to patients. If future studies confirm that the action of these drugs on the CNS can indeed be replicated, designing drugs that get into the CNS easier might improve the effectiveness and/or make it possible to use lower doses systemically.

Article References
New Approach to Rheumatoid Arthritis, site accessed on 9/11/06