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Rethinking the discordance between guidelines and practice in rheumatoid arthritis treatment

Shafqat Inam, Wendy L Lipworth, Ian H Kerridge and Richard O Day
Med J Aust 2011; 195 (8): . || doi: 10.5694/mja11.10068
Published online: 17 October 2011

A failure of practice, or a failure of evidence?

Drug treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has evolved significantly in recent decades, owing to increasing evidence supporting early intervention with disease-modifying therapies and the advent of novel biological therapies that specifically target the immunological and cellular mediators of disease.


  • 1 Department of Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, NSW.
  • 2 Australian Institute of Health Innovation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.
  • 3 Centre for Values, Ethics and Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.
  • 4 University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.
  • 5 Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW.


Correspondence: shafqat.inam@gmail.com

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

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