World Arthritis Day on Friday provided an opportunity to launch a UK-wide study examining the impact of a new class of drugs on the painful and debilitating condition, psoriatic arthritis.
The British Society for Rheumatology register for psoriatic arthritis will be led by the University of Aberdeen, with strong collaboration from Professor Philip Helliwell from Leeds, and aims to recruit 1,500 patients from 80 centres across the UK. Around 300,000 people in the UK have the condition, which in addition to the skin disease, psoriasis, causes inflamed, stiff and painful joints. Rather than surgery, some patients can be offered new powerful drugs called biological therapies (or biologics) that target specific parts of the immune system, and the opportunity to join this new study.