For rheumatoidarthritis (RA) at active stage, the effect of using tripterygiumglycosides alone is not worse than using methotrexate alone, but the two in combination produces a noticeably better effect than methotrexate alone, according to a research of PUMCH.
In early 2012, the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, led by Professor Zhang,Xuan, in cooperation with nine rheumatology research centers in China, carried out a clinical research comparing the effects of tripterygiumglycosides and methotrexate. After 24-week treatment of 207 patients, tripterygiumglycosides alone produced an effective rate of 55.1%, higher than the 46.4% of methotrexate alone, while the two in combination reached an effective rate of 76.8%.
"The findings are definitely of interest, as there was a clear treatment effect. This is a compound of interest for further study and development," said Dr. Eric L. Matteson, chair of the Division of Rheumatology and a professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic.
The findings were recently published in Ann Rheum Dis and BMJ also printed the news.