Less medicine, same relief: arthritis patients safely ease off powerful drugs

Powerful arthritis drugs calm painful joints, but they are costly and a burden to take forever. In a South Korean trial led by Dong-Jin Park of Chonnam National University, 348 people whose rheumatoid arthritis had stayed quiet for at least six months either kept their full dose or tapered it step by step. After 24 weeks, both groups stayed just as well — about nine in ten kept their disease under control — and anyone who flared regained control when the dose went back up. Published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, it is careful, monitored hope for a lighter treatment load.