Abstract

EXPERIMENTAL RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIC MODELS & DIAGNOSTIC MARKERS OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Kavitha CH.N.*, Lakshmi Iswarya T., Sai Nitish N. and Pratyusha R.

ABSTRACT

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease primarily characterized by synovitis which is accompanied by extra-articular organ involvement, such as interstitial pneumonia, in addition to clinical symptoms including pain, swelling, and stiffness of multiple joints, fever, and malaise. Joint destruction progresses soon after the onset, and once the affected joints are deformed, the development of irreversible physical dysfunction is noted. Thus, proper diagnosis and treatment are required from the early stages of the disease. Although palliative therapy with glucocorticoids and anti-inflammatory drugs had been used, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are currently used to suppress immune abnormalities and to control disease activity. And these drugs have also been shown to prevent the progression of joint destruction and physical dysfunction over a long period. The advent of the therapies has allowed for the use of treatments based on pathological mechanisms, and such therapeutic strategies have also been applied to the treatment of various autoimmune inflammatory diseases. However, these therapies are associated with some drawbacks and there is a need of extensive research to explore natural products for their efficacy and benefits in the treatment of RA. Rheumatoid arthritis can be induced in experimental animals especially in albino rats by certain procedures which would serve as a valuable platform to investigate various traditional plant products that have been widely used to treat RA and other inflammatory diseases in rural and tribal areas in India. Still, there was no scientific evidence for such important medicines. Therefore, it was thought worthwhile to segregate all the available experimental rheumatoid arthritis models and diagnostic markers of RA to help prove the scientific basis of many traditional and natural products for their efficacy in RA.

Keywords: .