Sir, ‘rheumatoid arthritis costs 3 billion a year, invest in early diagnosis’

2023-04-20 15:42:13

In Italy, rheumatoid arthritis costs the community over 3 billion euros every year, between direct and indirect costs. It is one of the most feared and painful rheumatological diseases, with remission possible in about 50% of cases. To achieve this goal, however, it is essential to count on early diagnosis and rapid therapeutic intervention. Unfortunately, for both arthritis and other serious conditions, this doesn’t always happen. In fact, only 18% of patients were able to name their disease within the first three months of experiencing symptoms. This is what the Italian Society of Rheumatology (SIR) claims, meeting in a press conference today in Rome to talk about the identification of pathologies and adherence to treatment.

“Late diagnoses affect as many as 1 million Italians – says Gian Domenico Sebastiani, president of Sir -. Patients wait up to 7 years to find out they suffer from psoriatic arthritis or fibromyalgia, 5 for ankylosing spondylitis, 3 for systemic sclerosis and 2 for rheumatoid arthritis. These are too long times, which cause a worsening of the symptoms and make recovery and treatment more difficult. It is necessary to provide correct information so that patients – he points out – do not underestimate the pain and offer general practitioners the tools suitable for recognizing the rheumatological disease and for referring the person to the specialist. In Italy there are 5.4 million rheumatological patients, therefore one person in ten. These are very high numbers, which make the need for an intervention evident. Many of them have disabling symptoms, with joint damage and consequent disability”.

Today, “drugs make it possible to stop the progression of pathologies – assures the president of rheumatologists – with a good recovery of functionality and a satisfactory recovery of one’s professional and personal life: however, this requires timely intervention, starting from the first symptoms. the last 20 years progress in research has allowed us to offer innovative therapeutic solutions, with fewer or no side effects and a reduced impact on daily habits.Unfortunately, the identification of the disease is not always simple, because the symptoms are often attributable to other pathologies. For this reason, it is essential to invest in updates and training for all specialists, from general practitioners to rheumatologists themselves, who must also be able to take care of patients with less common characteristics”.

“Many pathologies present difficulties and pains that make it difficult to carry out daily activities – underlines Ennio Lubrano di Scorpaniello, SIR vice president – studies show that 57% of rheumatological patients need help in everyday life. There are complications that can also be fatal, such as those affecting the lungs and heart. For this reason, involving people in information activities is essential. Like SIR, we carry out continuous dissemination activities towards clinicians and citizens, so that they can develop awareness of the importance of contacting their own doctor and quickly recognize the symptoms and refer the patient to a specialist who can quickly place him in a treatment program”.

“If early diagnosis is the first step in achieving healing or stabilization of symptoms, adherence to therapies is essential to allow the achievement of a good quality of life and avoid worsening”, remarked Silvia Tonolo, president of the National Association rheumatological patients (Anmar) and Roberto Messina, national president of Senior Elderly. “In the post-Covid period there has been a greater discontinuity in treatment: the main cause is the long waiting lists for specialist visits. Patients, once they notice an improvement in symptoms and are unable to contact the rheumatologist, increasingly decide to stop treatment. This causes first of all the worsening of the disease, with the reappearance of pain, secondly, serious difficulties for the doctor in defining an effective personalized therapy”, they underline.

Another “triggering factor is the fear of possible adverse reactions. As an association we try to provide information to the sick, urging them to have greater knowledge of the therapies, not to take independent initiatives and to wait for the doctor’s advice, but it is essential that the institutions lead the way, because non-adherence in chronic pathologies can even lead to death”, they conclude.