Anti-rheumatic medication used for rheumatoid arthritis would possibly stop the event of autoimmune thyroid illness, based on a brand new observational examine by researchers from Karolinska Institutet revealed within the Journal of Inside Medication.
It’s well-known that sufferers with rheumatoid arthritis are at elevated danger of autoimmune thyroid ailments corresponding to Hashimoto’s illness and Graves’ illness. Whereas sufferers with RA are often handled with immunomodulatory medication that have an effect on the immune system, such medication are hardly ever utilized in autoimmune thyroid ailments. As an alternative, such sufferers are handled with thyroid hormone to compensate for the adjustments in regular thyroid operate that accompany autoimmune thyroid illness.
The researchers within the present examine needed to analyze whether or not immunomodulatory medication that scale back irritation within the joints of sufferers with RA may additionally scale back the chance of those sufferers growing autoimmune thyroid illness. Earlier research in mice counsel that so-called DMARDs, a sort of immune-modulatory medication used to deal with rheumatoid arthritis, can scale back irritation within the thyroid gland. Nonetheless, data of whether or not this impact additionally applies to people is restricted, based on the analysis workforce.
The researchers used knowledge between 2006 and 2018 on over 13,000 sufferers with rheumatoid arthritis and their remedy, in addition to knowledge from over 63,000 people in a matched management group with out rheumatoid arthritis.
The researchers discovered that the chance of growing an autoimmune thyroid illness amongst RA sufferers was decrease after their onset of the rheumatic illness than earlier than analysis.
Probably the most pronounced discount within the danger of autoimmune thyroid illness was seen in sufferers with rheumatoid arthritis handled with immunomodulatory medication or ‘organic DMARDs’. In these sufferers, the chance of autoimmune thyroid illness was 46 p.c decrease than within the management group with out rheumatoid arthritis.
“These outcomes assist the speculation that sure varieties of immunomodulatory medication might have a preventive impact on autoimmune thyroid illness,” says Kristin Waldenlind, researcher on the Division of Medication, Solna, Division of Scientific Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, specialist in rheumatology at Karolinska College Hospital and first creator of the examine. She continues:
“Our outcomes don’t show that it’s the remedy with immunomodulatory medication that led to the lowered danger of autoimmune thyroid illness, however present assist for this speculation. The outcomes, if they are often replicated in additional research, open up the potential of learning extra immediately in scientific trials whether or not the immunomodulatory medication at the moment used for rheumatoid arthritis may be used for the early remedy of autoimmune thyroid illness, i.e. for brand spanking new areas of use of those medication, referred to as drug repurposing.
The Swedish Analysis Council, the Swedish Coronary heart-Lung Basis and Vinnova primarily financed the examine.
