JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v4i4.2356 jpsim.v4i4.2356 Review Article Chemical Synthetic Disease Modifying Drugs (csDMARD) Used for Rheumatoid Arthritis Hussain Asif drasifhussain@gmail.com * Akram Faisal Avais Jawaria Consultant Physician National Hospital, DHA, Lahore, Clinical Examiner for Australian Medical Council Lyndarum Family Clinic, Lyndarum Drive, Epping, Victoria,3076, Australia *Correspondence: Asif Hussain (drasifhussain@gmail.com) 29 11 2023 2023 4 4 277 283 28 07 2023 14 08 2023 Copyright © 2023 The Author(s) 2023 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common rheumatological disease all over the world. Disease burden, disease-related disability and cost is a significant problem especially for the developing countries. Many advanced and effective treatments including biological drugs are available. However, these biological options are costly and not available in many countries. Hence, traditional disease modifying drugs are still mainstay of treatment for such patients in developing countries. Affordability & availability are major reasons. Physicians managing these cases within limited resources face lot of challenges to control the disease. Junior doctors and trainees often find it hard to understand and prescribe these medications. This review article focuses on the elaboration of these chemical synthetic DMARDs, their pharmacological details, clinical uses and side effects.

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