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Show New Drug Cuts Treatment Cost Of Arthritis NEWARK, N. J. What is proving to be a revolutionary new development develop-ment in the treatment of rheumatoid rheuma-toid arthritis was disclosed in a report re-port just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology. Five scientists discovered that when insulin, the drug used in diabetes, dia-betes, is given simultaneously with cortisone, very much smaller doses of cortisone than heretofore used may be effective. This combination was reported to produce the same degree of relief in arthritis as when cortisone is used alone in the cus tomary large doses. The new treatment reduced the quanity of the scarce new "miracle drug" used. Thus, the method enables en-ables the doctors to cut the cost per day for treating hospitalized arthritis ar-thritis patients with cortisone from $12 to as little as $3 each, the report said. Cost of Drug Cut Cortisone is the adrenal compound com-pound reported by Drs. Hench and Kendall, of the Mayo Clinic, a little lit-tle more than a year ago as producing pro-ducing spectacular improvement in rheumatoid arthritis. Its use in medicine has been handicapped, the scientists explained, by its potential dangers and the extremely high cost of treatment. The principle of using insulin together to-gether with cortisone was developed by Dr. Edward Henderson, director direc-tor of the clinical research division of Schering Corporation, Bloomfield, N. J., and by Dr. Marvin Weinberg, Wein-berg, his associate, on the basis of animal and laboratory experiments conducted at the College of Physicians Physi-cians and Surgeons of Columbia University by a third member of the Schering team, Dr. Harry Seneca. The work was done through the cooperation of Dr. George C. Schicks, Director of St. Barnabas Hospital, Newark, N. J., and Dr. John W. Gray, distinguished rheu-matologist rheu-matologist and Director of the Arthritis Arth-ritis Clinic at St. Barnabas, and his associate, Dr. Evelyn Z. Merrick. Intense interest has focused on the cortisone treatment of arthritis for over a year since it was first announced at the Mayo Clinic, but physicians have been handicapped by the limited supply of the drug, Its prohibitively high cost, and certain cer-tain unfortunate side, effects which develop incidental to the treatment, when large doses of cortisone are used. Many efforts have been made to produce the drug in larger quan- tities and at lower cost, but prior to the St. Barnabas research nothing noth-ing had been done to make smaller quantities of the drug serve the purpose. 12 Patients Studied The research workers have stated that the new method does not merely mere-ly cut the cost of treatment to one-half one-half or less, but also offers a means of avoiding some of the dangerous actions of the drug, very familiar to physicians who have had experience experi-ence with cortisone. In addition, it the cost of treatment finally within reach of the majority of arthritis sufferers. Twelve patients with typical rheumatoid rheu-matoid arthritis were hospitalized in the St. Barnabas Hospital for this study. Some were early cases and some were chronic cases of 20 years standing with far advanced arthritis. |