[Scleroderma (progressive systemic sclerosis)].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M Chevallard.
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71 patients with variously located osteoarthrosis or primary fibromyalgic syndrome were treated with oral diacereine (DAR). The case series was accumulated in successive periods and may be divided into three groups. An "open" test on DAR (100 mg/die for 4 weeks) was conducted on the first group of 31 arthrosis patients. On the second group of 20 other arthrosis patients a "double-blind, cross-over" test was carried out using DAR (100 mg/die) and naproxene (500 mg/die) both for 2 weeks. The third group of 20 patients with fibromyalgia was treated with DAR alone: 100 mg/die 5 days a week for 12 weeks. The efficacy of the treatment was judged on the basis of the following parameters: rest pain, pressure pain, pain on active and passive movement, and functional limitation. In the first group a positive therapeutic effect was noted in 20 cases (68.9%). There were side effects (moderate diarrhea) in 3 patients 2 of whom suspended treatment. In the second group, DAR and naproxene had an almost identical effect. However 7 patients (36.8%) expressed a preference for DAR, 9 (47.4%) expressed no preference and only 3 (15.8%) preferred naproxene. Side effects were encountered in 3 patients treated with naproxene (2 cases of epigastralgia and pyrosis and 1 case of dyspnea so marked as to require suspension of treatment) and in 3 treated with DAR (modest diarrhea). In the third group, a positive therapeutic effect was noted in 68.4% of the patients with fibromyalgia with a 15% incidence of side effects consisting of slight abdominal pain (diarrhea caused suspension of treatment in 1 case only). Blood chemical parameters were studied in all three groups and no alterations attributable to the treatment were found. The obtained result suggests that the new drug is effective and well tolerated in the envisaged indications.
A 29-year-old white female with longstanding classical rheumatoid arthritis (RA) developed clinical and serological manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with prominent signs of diffuse proliferative lupus nephritis. She fulfilled the ARA criteria for the classification of SLE as well as the ARA criteria for classical RA. The concomitant presence of these two affections in the same patient is rare and the discriminating features suggest that this coexistence may be coincidental. With respect to treatment, our patient had good relief of symptoms by a combined administration of methylprednisolone pulses and cyclophosphamide.
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Ketoprofen lysine (KL) at a dose of 160 mg b.i.d. has been shown to have favourable anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties in a large number of patients. In the present paper investigators describe their experience with a new therapeutic schedule of KL, 320 mg given once a day to patients with various rheumatic disorders. With this new schedule there was satisfactory clinical improvement of most of the clinical parameters and good tolerability, with a low incidence of gastric troubles. The favourable clinical effects and the patients' good compliance with once-a-day KL make it a useful drug for successful treatment of rheumatic disorders.
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Sex hormone concentrations were studied in 10 men with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) before and after HCG stimulation and compared with those of 10 healthy volunteers. The SLE men had significantly lower testosterone/estradiol ratios (before HCG test) and significantly lower mean increases in testosterone after HCG stimulation than the normals. Our findings confirm that there are sexual hormone abnormalities in SLE and suggest that these abnormal patterns may be important in the modulation of immune responses in SLE.
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A 71-year-old Caucasian woman with rheumatoid arthritis, who had been treated with gold salts for 19 months, developed a significant proteinuria associated with nephrotic syndrome and renal impairment. Her renal biopsy revealed the unusual simultaneous occurrence of gold nephropathy and renal amyloidosis and she was treated by gold withdrawal, methylprednisolone pulses and azathioprine, with a good remission of symptoms. We describe the case and discuss the possible cause(s) of similar renal involvement and the results obtained with the combined therapy of steroids and cytotoxic drugs.