[Treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who desire to become pregnant--successful pregnancy in three cases treated with etanercept].

We report 3 cases with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who successfully gave birth just after etanercept was introduced for the treatment of RA. All of them had worried about infertility for a long time. It is difficult to confirm the safety of any medication during pregnancy. We sometimes hear that patients stop their medicines owing to the fear of side effects, such as birth defects; this fear is especially prevalent for disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). But it often takes a long time before women can become pregnant after discontinuation of DMARDs, and the activity of RA could become worse during this period. During this period, patients tend to take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which is not recommended during infertility. Etanercept has never been shown to be teratogenic in either animals or humans. We propose that etanercept may be a suitable drug for patients with RA who desire to become pregnant.