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Contact the study team using the details below to take part. If there are no contact details below please ask your doctor in the first instance.
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
Inflammatory polyarthropathies
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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:
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.
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 .
Your feedback is important to us. It will help us improve the quality of the study information on this site. Please answer both questions.
Read full details
for Trial ID: CPMS 49916
You can print or share the study information with your GP/healthcare provider or contact the research team directly.