WHY RHEUMATOLOGY?

In 2016, for the first time in American healthcare history, growth in rheumatologic treatment expenditure exceeded that of growth in expenditure of cancer treatment in the United States. That, combined with the rapid expansion of biological options available for treatment of various diseases including inflammatory arthritis, spondyloarthritis, and connective tissue diseases as well as the new and exciting cancer therapeutics sweeping the globe, known as immune checkpoint inhibitors with their severe autoimmune fallout and side effects, means rheumatology as a field has come to the forefront of medicine

Bahria International Hospital provides Rheumatology services which includes

• Autoimmune diseases
• Musculoskeletal symptoms which can involve internal organs like kidneys, lungs and brain.
• Long term disability
• Psoriatic Arthritis
• Gout
• Osteoporosis
• Crohn’s related Arthritis
• Other Rheumatic Condition’s
• Vasculitis all types
• Infective arthritis
• Osteomalacia
• Fibromyalgia’s
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Lupus
• Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Scleroderma
• Sjogren’s Syndrome
• Intra articular and regional pain syndrome injections
• Inflammatory myositis, dermatomycosis’s and myopathies
• Autoimmune diseases of all organs
• Physical therapy and ancillary/ complementary medicine advise in rheumatic diseases
• And many other condition (long list).

• Therefore, I propose that Lahore as a major city (and Pakistan as a populous country with nearly 220 million people) is significantly in need of dedicated centers of excellence in the rheumatologic diseases.
• Keeping that in mind, I would like to present an idealized outline of how such a center that excels in managing rheumatologic, autoimmune, and inflammatory arthritic diseases could be established at Bahria town Hospital.
• Bahria hospital; not just for disease diagnostics and therapeutics but also training and education of medical and post-graduate students so they’re better prepared to handle such pathologies. The model for such a center will be based on evidence-based medicine and proven success of precedents set by globally renowned academic centers.