• What causes my child’s illness?
• Is it genetic? What genes are responsible?
• What is the BEST treatment for my child’s disease?
• Will my child’s disease go into remission? For how long?
• Can blood or genetic tests help predict the best course of treatment or predict whether my child’s disease will go into remission?
• How will the disease affect my child 5, 10, 15 or 20 years from now?

Pediatric rheumatologists all over the United States are directing ongoing studies of many different types of rheumatologic disease in children:

• A new large multi-center trial of aggressive early therapy in the treatment of polyarticular
  juvenile idiopathic arthritis (the TREAT trial) is underway and enrolling new patients.
• Studies of the use of biologics in childhood uveitis and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (RAPPORT) are in progress.
• The largest trial in pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus and the risk of premature atherosclerosis is halfway done.
• A wide variety of studies of improving the treatment of childhood Lupus are either
  ongoing or have recently completed.
• Studies on the care and underlying genetics of juvenile dermatomyositis are in progress.
• Many others including studies in scleroderma and vasculitis are underway.

For more information, look for the Current Studies at the CARRA website or contact your pediatric rheumatologist.

These studies are all quite significant, but there is so much more to be done! We must increase the dollars available for new studies to improve the care of our children.

Please help us achieve this goal and DONATE NOW!

Are you interested in finding out whether your child would be eligible for an ongoing clinical study or trial? If so, contact your pediatric rheumatologist and learn more about clinical trials from the National Institutes of Health.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/info/understand