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RheumNow Week in Review - 3 June 2016
This week's highlights from RheumNow.com include:
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Gastrointestinal Perforation Risk increased for Tofacitinib and Tocilizumab
Gastrointestinal perforations (GIP) are not historically believed to be a common or uncommon complication. Hence, when this was noted in the tocilizumab (TCZ) and tofacitinib (TOFA) developmental trials, it was a curious if not perplexing finding.
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IL-23 Inhibitor Effective in Crohn's Disease
Selective IL-23 inhibition has been touted to be the next great advance in the treatment of inflammatory bowel and psoriatic disease.
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Tocilizumab Effective in PMR
Polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) should be easy and responsive, but it can be a challenge and requires long-term steroid therapy. Problems often begin when steroid–induced side effects take their toll on a patient, especially in elderly adults.
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TB Management Questions
The following is a compilation of several frequently asked questions regarding tuberculosis (TB) testing or treatment in patients on a TNF inhibitor (TNFi) or other biologic agents.
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ORBIT Study Shows Rituximab and TNF inhibitor Equivalence
The initial choice of biologic is crucial to long-term success. Yet there are few studies evaluating head-to-head differences in some of our most popular therapies.
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Cochrane Reports Moderate Evidence Favoring Biologic Add-on Therapy
Singh and coworkers have assessed the value of adding a biologic to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients not responding to either methotrexate (MTX) or DMARDs. The results of their netowork metanalsysis is published as a Cochrane review wherein they examined a total of 90 RCTs (73 new) with 32
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Secukinumab Improves Patient-Reported Outcomes in Psoriatic Arthritis (FUTURE 1)
Secukinumab (Cosentyx) has recently been approved for use in ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis; the latter largely based on the FUTURE 2 and the just reported FUTURE 1 clinical trial. FUTURE 1 demonstrates the efficacy and safety of secukinumab, with inital weekly intravenous loading, given monthly as a subcutaneous injection.
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Vasculitis Associated with Biologic Use
The widespread use of existing biologics has sometimes been associated with the paradoxical development of biologic-induced autoimmune phenomena, including vasculitis. A recent review of more than 200 vasculitis cases associated with biologic use has profiled the range of these unsual and rare events.
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Curbside Consults - May 2016
How would you manage rheumatoid arthritis patients with melanoma in situ, or high liver enzymes or interstitial lung disease? Curbside consults takes on these challenging therapeutic or safety issues with answers are based on experience, literature and guidelines.
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faSScinate Study Shows Tocilizumab to be Effective in Systemic Sclerosis
The results of the faSScinate trial were published in Lancet showing that treatment with Actemra (tocilizumab) resulted in a reduction in skin thickness and an improvement in lung function in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).
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The RheumNow Week in Review – 6 May 2016
Watch Dr. Cush discuss the highlights from this week on RheumNow.com.
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Biosimilar Switching Shows Favorable Interchangeability
Interchangeability is a major issue that will determine the success of biosimilars.
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Low Adherence to Biologics in Psoriasis Patients
Doshi and colleagues have conducted a retrospective claims analysis (2009 through 2012) of psoriasis patients on Medicare to examine the use and adherence to those initiating treatment with either infliximab, etanercept, adalimumab, or ustekinumab.
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Can Rituximab Change the Course of Interstitial Lung Disease?
Like other extraarticular manifestations, rheumatoid (RA) or connective tissue disease (CTD) related interstitial lung disease (ILD) is difficult to identify early and equally challenging to treat.
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Vaccine Success is Limited in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Numerous guidelines (ACR, ACIP/CDC, ATS, NICE) all call for timely vaccinations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and those receiving immunosuppressives or biologics.
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Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy in Lupus
Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a rare neurological disorder with many associations or causative factors that rarely includes autoimmune disorders and lupus.
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Biosimilar Reports - April 2016
Major advances in biosimilars have occurred in the last three months, beginning with the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee voting 21-3 to approve Celltrion’s Inflectra (CT-P13) and ending with the recent approval of Inflectra (generically referred to as infliximab dyyb).
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Lupus Patients Genomically Stratified to Explain Treatment Responses
Systemic lupus is a clinically heterogeneous disorder, unified by requisite clinical features and exuberant humoral response to unknown triggers. While the diagnosis is easy, the disease course and management can be complicated and challenging.
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Population-Based TB Risk and Prevention with RA and Biologics
In a retrospective cohort comparison study, 42,180 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients were compared 1:4 with 168,000 normal controls to examine the incidence of new tuberculosis in Taiwan. The RA population included those receiving csDMARDs (36,162), etanercept (3,577), adalimumab (1,67
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