Rheumatoid Arthritis - Radiographic Progression

Today I dictated the findings in our patient's x-rays and I saw two women with rapid progression.

Here are the x-rays of one patient, who showed up for the first time two weeks ago, is now at our day clinic. She was born in 1983 and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis for at least seven years, but didn't look for professional help. She just go prescription pain killers by her GP.

The carpalia are destructed and fused into an os carpale.

Also the heads of the metatarsalia show erosive disease.

The second woman was born in 1958. We treated her until 2010, when she wanted to frequent a rheumatologist closer to her home. We gave the advice to chance therapy to Enbrel as she already suffered from erosive disease. Here are the two x-rays of March 2010.

And now two years after these pictures, we have made these x-rays today.

I think one can easily see the dramatic changes and the rapid progression of the disease.

The second metacarpalia must have been broken and healed during the past two years.

These two examples demonstrate, how important it might be to act within a small limit of time.