Extracorporeal immunoparmacotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Worldwide, about 1% of population or 165 million people suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. And, despite all the achievements of modern medicine, the mortality rate is 1.6-2.0 times higher than in the general population. However, the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis remains a difficult problem to resolve. Disorders of both humoral and cellular immunity are involved in its pathogenesis. Therefore, it is difficult to choose the optimal drug therapy that does not always provide the desired effect, but, on the other hand, leads to additional complications. Extracorporeal immuno pharmacotherapy seems to be the optimal method, which allows not only to remove autoantibodies, immune complexes and other pathological metabolites, but also to suppress the activity of their producers such as T- and B- lymphocytes and macrophages, without affecting the whole body. This achieves a more stable remission with less toxic doses of drug therapy.