Katie Robinson

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis who are physically active are less likely to report cognitive difficulties, say researchers recently writing in ACR Open Rheumatology.

Ultra-low doses of rituximab (Rituxan, MabThera) used as maintenance treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in patients who responded well to this agent did not show non-inferiority, but could nevertheless be considered in clinical practice, say researchers recently writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Postmenopausal women who participate in vigorous physical activity have a lower risk of total and hip fractures, but higher knee fracture risk, say researchers recently writing in JAMA Network Open.

Postmenopausal women who participate in vigorous physical activity have a lower risk of total and hip fractures, but higher knee fracture risk, say researchers recently writing in JAMA Network Open.

More than half of rheumatoid arthritis patients had persistent moderate-to-high disease activity after six months of treatment with a conventional synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (csDMARD), and less than a third had their therapy escalated, indicating that there is considerable need for a treat-to-target approach to care for these patients, say researchers recently writing in Clinical Rheumatology.

ACR Annual Meeting:  Exposure to industrial emissions of fine particles matter and sulfur dioxide are associated with the presence of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies, a characteristic biomarker for rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

ACR Annual Meeting:  In patients with moderate to severe systemic lupus erythematosus, anifrolumab (AstraZeneca) was superior to placebo for overall disease activity, skin disease and oral corticosteroid tapering, among other efficacy endpoints, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

In rheumatoid arthritis patients who are in sustained remission and receiving conventional synthetic DMARDs, continued treatment with stable doses led to fewer disease activity flares and less frequent radiographic joint damage progression than tapered csDMARD treatment, shows a study.

ACR Annual Meeting:  Single intra-articular doses of UBX0101 of up to 4 mg were well-tolerated by patients with painful knee osteoarthritis, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12. The treatment is in development, but if it pans out, it may reduce the effects aging on arthitic joints.

ACR Annual Meeting:  In a small study, patients with macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) receiving emapalumab (Gamifant, Sobi) achieved complete response, according to data presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

ACR Annual Meeting:  The use of methotrexate combined with or without the oral JAK inhibitor tofacitinib produced no clinically meaningful difference in 179 psoriatic arthritis patients from the OPAL Balance study, presented at ACR 2019 this week.

ACR Annual Meeting:  Cannabis use among patients with rheumatic diseases has increased since 2014, and those who tried cannabis tended to have worse pain, disease activity, and symptoms and were taking more analgesics, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 13.

ACR Annual Meeting:  In patients with active psoriatic arthritis, who are biologic-naïve, guselkumab (Tremfya, Janssen) improved joint and skin symptoms, physical function, quality of life, and resolved enthesitis and dactylitis, according to a study presented at annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

ACR Annual Meeting:  Patients with calcium pyrophosphate deposition (CPPD) disease may be at an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events along with a higher mortality rate compared to those without the disease, according to a study presented at annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

ACR Annual Meeting:  A large proportion of patients with rheumatoid arthritis achieved remission with either active conventional therapy or with one of three different biologic therapies, certolizumab, abatacept and tocilizumab, after 24 weeks of treatment, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

Intravenous administration of ketamine in patients undergoing total knee or hip arthroplasty is safe and effective for postoperative pain relief and the reduction of morphine consumption without increasing the risk of gastrointestinal or psychotic adverse effects, say researchers writing in the BMJ Open last month.

Secukinumab (Cosentyx, Novartis) provided sustained low rates of radiographic progression through 52 weeks in patients with active psoriatic arthritis, say researchers writing in Rheumatology this month.

Almost 15 percent of patients with inflammatory bowel disease showed evidence of excessive steroid use or dependency, and in half of these cases this excess was potentially avoidable, say researchers writing in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics this month.

Intra-articular corticosteroid injections for relief of the pain of hip or knee osteoarthritis may be harmful in some patients with at-risk conditions or may cause complications that are not well understood, say researchers writing in Radiology this month.

More than 50 percent of early inflammatory arthritis patients wait too long for physician referrals and specialist appointments, according to the latest figures released from the British Society for Rheumatology’s National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit.

Among patients with systemic rheumatic diseases, the risk of opportunistic infections was highest in those with polymyositis/dermatomyositis, say researchers writing in Arthritis Research & Therapy this month.

Exposure to industrial emissions of fine particles matter and sulfur dioxide are associated with the presence of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA), a characteristic biomarker for rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta on November 12.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved ustekinumab (Stelara, Janssen) for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, a condition that affects approximately 910,000 adults in the U.S.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis have twice the rate of joint surgery when compared with the general population, with one-third of patients with this condition undergoing joint surgery, say researchers writing in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases this month.

Adalimumab (Humira, AbbVie) exposure in pregnancy is not associated with an increased risk for major and minor structural birth defects, spontaneous abortion, pre and post-natal growth deficiency, serious or opportunistic infections and malignancies, say researchers writing in PLOS ONE this month.

The use of interleukin inhibitors in patients with rheumatologic diseases is associated with higher rates of serious infections, opportunistic infections, and cancer, compared to placebo, say researchers writing in JAMA Network Open this month.

The diagnosis of osteoporosis in statin-treated patients is dose-dependent, say researchers writing in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases last month.

Failure to achieve a target serum urate level of below 6 mg/dL among patients with gout is an independent predictor of total and cardiovascular-related mortality, say researchers writing in RMD Open: Rheumatic & Musculoskeletal Diseases this month.

Opioid use among patients with rheumatoid arthritis is prevalent, and while there is a small decrease in overall opioid use after tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor initiation, newly initiated opioid use after TNF inhibitor initiation may reflect an unmet need in pain management, say researchers writing in Rheumatology and Therapy this month.

Prior authorization requirements are associated with treatment delays and prior authorization denials are associated with greater glucocorticoid exposure, say researchers writing in Arthritis Care & Research last month.