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Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: Overview

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Synonyms

bDMARDs; csDMARDs; Disease-suppressing Anti-rheumatic Drugs; DMARDs; Slow-acting Anti-rheumatic Drugs; tsDMARDs

Definitions

Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are drugs which decrease the inflammation, slow the damage to joints, and decrease the systemic effects of rheumatoid arthritis and are used or investigated for other inflammatory diseases. There are three major groups: conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs), targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs), and biological DMARDs (bDMARDs).

  • The older smaller molecular mass drugs (e.g., antimalarial methotrexate, sulfasalazine, and leflunomide) make up the csDMARDs. Members of this group are often termed slow-acting antirheumatic drugs (SAARDs) because their actions develop slowly.

  • The newer agents, Janus kinase inhibitors and phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitors, which are low molecular mass, synthetic drugs which were synthesized to target specific processes, are consequently termed tsDMARDs.

  • The bDMARDs which contain...

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Correspondence to Kevin D. Pile , Garry G. Graham or Stephen M. Mahler .

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Pile, K.D., Graham, G.G., Mahler, S.M. (2016). Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: Overview. In: Parnham, M.J. (eds) Compendium of Inflammatory Diseases. Springer, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8550-7_48

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