ABSTRACT
In their review article the authors overview the primary and secondary pulmonary complications of rheumatoid arthritis with the help of bibliographic data. They emphasize the pulmonological complications of disease modifying antirheumatic drugs used for the pharmaceutical therapy of rheumatoid arthritis, of which they discuss the methotrexate induced pulmonary diseases. Methotrexate participates nearly in all of additive double and triple--O'Dell-scheme--combined disease modifying antirheumatic drugs therapy. Because of that, the early detection of drug-induced pulmonological complications is important. For rheumatologists the treatment of methotrexate resistant rheumatoid arthritis is always getting a higher and higher challenge. Biological therapeutical drugs act as cytokine antagonists, by blocking TNF-alpha and, compared to disease modifying antirheumatic drugs, they can more effectively inhibit the progression of the disease. These are the biological response modifiers. Their main representatives are infliximab, adalimumab, and etanercept. At the end, the authors discuss secondary pulmonary complications caused by biological response modifiers, e.g. the biological response modifiers associated pulmonary tuberculosis, bacterial tracheobronchitis, bacterial pneumonia, bronchiectasia, pulmonary oedema, rapid fibrosing alveolitis, and coccidioidomycosis. At 3% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, treated with biological response modifiers, who live in Arizona, California, Nevada, pulmonary and systemic mycosis--coccidioidomycosis can appear with a 15% of mortality. As a consequence of frequent earthquakes, the spores getting into the air from the ground infect immunosuppressed patients treated with biological response modifiers. The authors draw attention to the fact that patients who receive biological therapy and travel to the above-mentioned endemic or earthquake-active regions, have a potential high risk, so it is indispensable that they are informed by the doctor. Testing and use of newer and newer groups of biological response modifiers are expected in the near future in the therapy of rheumatoid arthritis. Nowadays--in patients, who are non-reactive for TNF-alpha inhibitor treatment--the use of B-lymphocyte inhibitor rituximab, characteristic in non-Hodgkin lymphoma therapy is possible. The pulmonary complications of rheumatoid arthritis therapy of that cytokine are not known yet. Today, antirheumatic therapy results in a significant improvement of patients' life-quality, whilst the more and more modern therapeutical methods cause more complications.
