Who will have ‘miracle’ improvement of rheumatoid arthritis during pregnancy?
When women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) plan to become pregnant, many anguish over whether to stop their medications, risking a flareup in their disease, or continue with medication and risk possible harm to the baby. About 50% to 75% will see their disease naturally improve during pregnancy for not-yet-known reasons, while others may see a worsening of their RA. But they have had no way of knowing which would happen to them. Now, scientists have identified, for the first time, genetic markers before pregnancy that could predict who will improve and who will worsen.
