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Contact Information:

Miss Helen Williams
h.m.williams.1@bham.ac.uk


Kady Hutton
ras@uhb.nhs.uk


Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Ruchir Singh
r.singh.4@bham.ac.uk


Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Naomi Richardson
n.richardson@bham.ac.uk


Study Location:

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Be Part of Research - Trial Details - Prediction of treatment response in inflammatory arthritis

Prediction of treatment response in inflammatory arthritis

Recruiting

Open to: Female / Male

Age: 18 Years - 100 Years

Medical Conditions

Inflammatory polyarthropathies


This information is provided directly by researchers, and we recognise that it isn't always easy to understand. We are working with researchers to improve the accessibility of this information. In some summaries, you may come across links to external websites. These websites will have more information to help you better understand the study.


Although several treatments exist to help treat inflammatory arthritis, not all patients respond to them. There are a group of patients who still have arthritis symptoms, despite trying several different treatments. This is sometimes termed ‘refractory arthritis’. The reason why some patients do not respond to multiple treatments is not yet clearly understood, and new treatment strategies to target this area are urgently needed.

Factors contributing to refractory disease are varied and may originate from inside the joint, on a cellular level, to human factors that impact on treatment response. ‘Synovial fibroblasts’ are cells that form the lining of the joints. They also have a role in inflammation within the joint, but are yet to be targeted by medications. Recently these fibroblasts have been shown to exist as different groups, each with different roles, including that of driving tissue/joint damage.

We hypothesise that these fibroblasts are responsible for why inflammation in the joint persists, and may determine a patient’s response to treatment.

We will investigate this holistically, by looking closely at what happens to the cells within the joint during arthritis, but also how patient factors can contribute to arthritis.

We will recruit patients with arthritis across several sites in Birmingham. Patients will be recruited at various stages throughout the natural history of their arthritis, including from treatment naïve disease onset to remission.

We will collect information through questionnaires and clinical assessment, and acquire samples including urine, stool, joint fluid and blood. We will also obtain synovial tissue (tissue from the lining of a joint) using our existing ultrasound guided synovial tissue biopsy pipeline and infrastructure at the University of Birmingham. Using these clinical samples, we will perform a series of experiments and analyse clinical data to determine the factors that affect treatment response and progression of arthritis.

Start dates may differ between countries and research sites. The research team are responsible for keeping the information up-to-date.  

The recruitment start and end dates are as follows:

28 Mar 2022 31 May 2026

Observational

Observational type: Clinical Laboratory Study;



You can take part if:



You may not be able to take part if:


- Symptoms or signs judged to be attributable solely to non-inflammatory joint disease


Below are the locations for where you can take part in the trial. Please note that not all sites may be open.

  • Queen Elizabeth Hospital
    Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre
    edgbaston
    Birmingham
    West Midlands
    B15 2TH
  • Sandwell General Hospital
    Lyndon
    West Bromwich
    West Midlands
    B71 4HJ
  • City Hospital
    Dudley Road
    Birmingham
    West Midlands
    B18 7QH

Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Ruchir Singh
r.singh.4@bham.ac.uk


Adam Croft
a.p.croft@bham.ac.uk


Kady Hutton
ras@uhb.nhs.uk


Miss Helen Williams
h.m.williams.1@bham.ac.uk


Naomi Richardson
n.richardson@bham.ac.uk



The study is sponsored by University of Birmingham and funded by THE KENNEDY TRUST FOR RHEUMATOLOGY RESEARCH .





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for Trial ID: CPMS 49916

Last updated 25 April 2025

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