Lana Pine

Patients with rheumatic disease reported significant employment status changes, which may imply issues with healthcare access, affordable medication, mental health concerns, and rheumatic disease activity. However, they tended to follow public health advice and continued therapy to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 diagnosis.

John Cush, MD, discusses his upcoming lecture entitled, “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Year in Review,” which will be presented at the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

Randall Cron, MD, PhD, discuss his lectures entitled, “The Immunology of COVID” and “The Role of Rheumatologists in COVID-19,” which will be presented at the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

Brian LaMoreaux, MD, MS, discusses the recent study entitled, "Improving outcomes for patients hospitalised with gout: a systematic review."

Alexis Ogdie-Beatty, MD, discusses the UPLIFT survey and UPLIFT Innovation Challenge, the unmet needs of patients with psoriatic arthritis, and the clinical significance of the survey’s results.

Leonard Calabrese, DO, discusses his findings entitled, “Applied Immunology to Autoimmune Diseases: COVID-19 as Immunology,” which was presented at the Rheumatology Nurses Society Conference.

Only 11% of patients reported a flare that required treatment and no participants experienced severe flares. Approximately 60% of flares occurred after D2.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending August 6, 2021.

Although it is assumed that fatigue is related to inflammation, disease activity, or treatment with drugs such as Methotrexate, it can affect children independent of disease activity and impacted by psychosocial factors.

The risk of developing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was reduced by 19% with every increase in a healthy lifestyle index score (HLIS). The risk of dsDNA positive SLE reduced 22% with the addition of each healthy behavior. Those with genetic risk factors may be able to reduce their risk of SLE diagnosis by almost 50% with adherence to healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Richard Furie, MD, discusses the recent FDA approval of anifrolumab-fnia for the treatment of patients with systemic lupus.

Philip J Mease, MD, discusses his study, “Guselkumab demonstrated an independent treatment effect in reducing fatigue after adjustment for clinical response—results from two phase 3 clinical trials of 1120 patients with active psoriatic arthritis.”

On this month's episode of Overdrive, Roy Fleischmann, MD, discusses the recent Pfizer press release regarding the safety of JAK inhibitors and his personal opinions on prescribing JAK inhibiting drugs to his patients.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of anifrolumab-fnia (Saphnelo™) for the treatment of moderate to severe systemic lupus erythematosus.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending July 30, 2021.

After controlling for variables, eldery-onset rheumatoid arthritis (EORA) was not indicative of changes in Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) scores over time when compared with a non-EORA cohort. Further, there were no significant differences in the efficacy and safety of receiving biologic/targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (b/tsDMARDs).

“Our study confirms challenges in selecting an appropriate outcome in interventional studies targeting medication adherence and the ways in which the lack of guidance in this area hinders research and limits our ability to compare interventions and draw conclusions about their effectiveness,” stated investigators.

Common immunosuppressant therapies for patients with rheumatic disease, such as methotrexate and targeted biologics, increase risk of serious infection, especially with respiratory pathogens. A recent study investigates the connection between these drugs and functional humoral immunity to the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech).

Many children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis stop vaccinating when diagnosis is established, despite them being at a greater risk of infections than healthy children due to their aberrant immunity and the use of immunosuppressive drugs.

While prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is advocated by recent recommendations, ASCVD prevention in patients with RA was underwhelming, according to an international audit.

Roy Fleischmann, MD, discusses the recent Pfizer press release touching upon the safety of JAK inhibitors. He explains the recent scrutiny of JAKs, the concerns some rheumatologists have in regard to JAK inhibitors, and his personal opinions on prescribing JAK inhibiting drugs to his patients.

Guselkumab, an interleukin-23p19-subunit inhibitor, led to clinically significant and sustained improvements in fatigue through 1 year in patients with active psoriatic arthritis.

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus presented more cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy, along with impaired health-related quality of life and parasympathetic function, when compared with a control cohort.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending July 23, 2021.

Catch up on Rheumatology Network's most recent highlights in psoriatic arthritis news.

The painTRAINER program included 8 weekly modules, in addition to coping skill activities, in which investigators measured outcomes including the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, pain interference, physical function, anxiety and depression, fatigue, and sleep disturbances.

Investigators analyzed the effect of biologic therapies in order to determine the effectiveness of this first-line biologic approach in treating systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) and reducing the exposure of glucocorticoids, a driver of morbidity in this patient population.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending July 16, 2021.

Glucocorticoid withdrawal over a prolonged period of time did not increase clinical flares or damage for patients with inactive systemic lupus erythematosus.

Given the low prevalence of anti-Sjögren's-syndrome-related antigen A (anti-SSA) and anti–Sjögren's-syndrome-related antigen B (anti-SSB) in women with rheumatoid arthritis who would like to conceive, intensive echocardiographic screening may not be necessary.