Clin Exp Rheumatol
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Assessment of long-term safety and efficacy of etanercept in a 5-year extension study in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
To evaluate long-term safety and efficacy of etanercept (ETN) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) without concomitant disease-modifying antirheumatic drug therapy. ⋯ ETN maintained a favourable safety profile and consistent efficacy throughout the 5-year study duration.
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Multicenter Study
Resource utilisation and health care costs in patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia in Spain.
Fibromyalgia (FM) patients have been regarded as great utilizers of health resources, with important related costs. The aim of this study is to describe health care resource utilisation and related costs of FM from the perspective of the National Health System in Spain. ⋯ FM patients with higher costs show the greatest disease involvement. Direct and indirect costs are well correlated to disease severity. The indirect costs account for most of the economic burden of FM and approximately double the health care costs. Patients with permanent working disability present more severe disease and generate greater health care costs.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Validity and reliability of the Italian version of the ECOS-16 questionnaire in postmenopausal women with prevalent vertebral fractures due to osteoporosis.
To investigate the reliability and validity of the Italian version of ECOS-16 (Assessment of health related quality of life in osteoporosis) in comparison to other questionnaires in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. ⋯ The Italian version of the ECOS-16 questionnaire was demonstrated to have good psychometric properties and could offer a useful tool in research and routine clinical practice to evaluate HRQoL in post-menopausal women with osteoporosis. A full validation of the psychometric properties will require data on its sensitivity to change.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Double-blind, multicenter trial comparing acetyl l-carnitine with placebo in the treatment of fibromyalgia patients.
Fibromyalgia (FMS) is a chronic syndrome characterized by widespread pain, troubled sleep, disturbed mood, and fatigue. Several analgesic strategies have been evaluated but the results are moderate and inconsistent. Antidepressant agents are now considered the treatment of choice in most patients. It has been recently suggested that FMS may be associated with metabolic alterations including a deficit of carnitine. In this multicenter randomized clinical trial we evaluated the efficacy of acetyl L-carnitine (LAC) in patients with overt FMS. ⋯ Although this experience deserves further studies, these results indicate that LAC may be of benefit in patients with FMS, providing improvement in pain as well as the general and mental health of these patients.
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The diagnosis and treatment of the mucocutaneous (MC), neuropsychiatric (NP), and renal (RN) manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remain unsolved issues. To shed light on these issues, a questionnaire was prepared and sent to 153 lupus centres around the world, in order to determine the level of agreement between experts in their approach to these complex aspects of the disease. ⋯ The present survey indicates that, although most of the participating centres had extensive experience in the management of SLE, their approach to the MC manifestations was not homogeneous, and collaborative studies are clearly needed, particularly to optimise the therapeutic protocols.