Dr. Feldtkeller of the German society, requested our participation in an important study. If you would like to help, please download the following form: Click here. Once you have completed the form, please mail to SAA so that we can send completed questionnaires along to Prof. Dr. Monika Ostensen, affiliated with the Bern Hospital, Switzerland, who is conducting the study. We will tell you about the results of the study once the data has been analyzed and published.

Please mail the form to:
Laurie Savage
Spondylitis Association of America
16360 Roscoe Blvd. Ste 100
Van Nuys, CA 91406

The spectrum of medications against rheumatic diseases like ankylosing spondylitis has been dramatically increased in recent years. An essential innovation in this respect are the drugs classified as "biologics," which inhibit the pro-inflammatory substance "TNF-alpha" in the human body. TNF-alpha blocking drugs have effectively decreased the disease activity in many patients with ankylosing spondylitis. Besides their positive effect, there is also great uncertainty with respect to the question: How safe is it if a patient wants to become father or mother during the treatment with one of the new drugs? Which drug taken before or even during pregnancy may have a negative effect on the offspring? Only very little is known about this because new drugs are never tested on pregnant woman. Only tests with pregnant animals are available. They have never indicated a harmful influence on the offspring, neither when given to female animals nor when given to males. The uncertainty remains however, in relation to effects on humans.

To close this gap of knowledge, a research project was initiated in collaboration with ASIF. With the help of a questionnaire, information will be captured on pregnancies which ended later than January 1st 2000 where a patient with ankylosing spondylitis was either the father or the mother of the infant-whether or not the parent was on any type of anti-rheumatic medication. The researchers are seeking to compare pregnancies with and without drug therapy.

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