Successful Treatment with Traditional Herbal Medicine in the Patient with Rheumatoid Arthritis Even Complicating with Atypical Mycobacterium Infection

Aims: There are still several problems in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) therapeutic strategies, although its outcome has been changing better than before. We present the RA patient with atypical mycobacterium infection successfully treated with Traditional Herbal Medicine (THM), and discuss the usability of THM for patients with RA under the current European league against rheumatism (EULAR) recommendation for the management of RA.

Study Design: Case Study (Case report).

Case Presentation: The RA patient (72-year-old female) who passed after the onset for 20 years had the moderate RA disease activity, and complicating with atypical mycobacterium infection in her lung during clinical course. THM treatment alone resulted in the good response in disease activity score of RA as well as no aggravation of atypical mycobacterium infection.

Discussion and Conclusion: We have demonstrated the RA patient with mycobacterium infection successfully treated with THM alone, and discussed in the clinical utility of THM in the trend EULAR recommendation for RA, termed “treat to target”.