Yes, new drugs like Remicade and Enbrel, introduced around 1999, are the greatest breakthrough drugs against auto-immune diseases like Crohn's and rheumatiod arthritis since prednisone in the 50's. Moreover, there are a whole bunch more in the pipeline pending FDA approval.
I don't have access here to the conference. Have they said anything about the permanence of the damage. That is, can the loss be reversed?
Plus there is also this:
The scientists believe that they have discovered what causes the body's defences mistakenly to attack healthy joints and tissue. The breakthrough focuses on the role of so-called B-cells, white blood cells that defend the body against viruses and bacteria by making antibodies. Although these antibodies are made at random by B-cells, most of them prove useful against some microbe or other.
Every so often, however, the B-cells accidentally make antibodies that attack healthy tissue. Worse still, some of these errant antibodies also trigger the production of copies of themselves. The result, according to the University College team, is a huge self-sustained attack on joints and tissue, which appears in the sufferer as rheumatoid arthritis.
Professor Jonathan Edwards, who is leading the research team, told The Telegraph: "It probably takes just one genetic mistake in a lifetime to trigger this reaction but once it gets going it becomes a vicious circle."
Prof Edwards and his colleagues believe that they have found a way to break the circle, using drugs that seek out and destroy B-cells. He said: "Unlike with other cells in the immune system, most people can live without any B-cells for a while. By the time we reach adulthood we have already made most of the antibodies we need."
More here.
As an arthritis sufferer I look forward to these quantum leaps forward in treatment. After a single treatment to wipe out all the B-cells, the body responds by making fresh ones. The chances of these new B-cells making the same mistake as their predecessors, however, thereby triggering a return of rheumatoid arthritis, is small.