Braaten and colleagues from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have reported their experience with chronic inflammatory arthritis induced by immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies, showing that in some, inflammatory arthritis persists after the immunotherapy has been discontinued.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.

A prospective trial has shown that 2 weeks of antibiotic therapy is as effective as 4 weeks of antibiotic therapy, with similar outcomes but shorter hospital stays.

Bimekizumab is a dual inhibitor of IL-17A and IL-17F that has been shown to be effective in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. A proof-of-concept study shows that giving bimekizumab to rheumatoid arthritis patients not adequately controlled by certolizumab pegol resulted in a rapid decrease in disease activity achieved after 12 weeks of treatment. These findings are novel as anti-IL-17 monoclonal antibody therapy has previously been shown to be ineffective in RA.

CreakyJoints has completed a 258 patient survey showing that nearly three-fourths of people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have expressed dissatisfaction with their treatments, including conventional (csDMARDs) and biologic Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs (bDMARDs).

A large pregnancy registry has published their results showing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who become pregnant are less likely to breastfeed compared to non-RA women from the general population, with many women stopping breastfeeding so that they could start medication, even though many of

An insurance claims based study of RA patients with COPD shows that biologics do not have an increased rate of respiratory events compared to those on conventional DMARDs.

A real world cohort of RA patients with COPD was drawn from US-based MarketScan databases. Patients on biologic DMARDs and/or targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs) were propensity matched to those on conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs).

The ENTRACTE trial examined the risk for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in RA patients and found no increased risk of MACE in patients treated with tocilizumab (TCZ) versus etanercept (ETN).

Detailed analysis of two clinical trials in RA has shown that clinical responses decrease as the disease duration and number of prior DMARDs increase.

The associations between disease duration and number of prior DMARDs and response to therapy were assessed using data from two randomised controlled trials in patients with established RA (mean duration, 11 years) receiving adalimumab+methotrexate.

Dr. Jack Cush vents on choosing new therapies in rheumatoid arthritis.

A study from Leeds suggests 'multi-dimensional remission' (MDR) can be seen in one-third of RA patients achieving DAS28-remission; such patients have better patient-reported outcome measures, making it an optimal goal, especially from a patient's perspective.

A study of pregnancy outcomes in 98 women with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who were exposed to DMARDs shows no increased risk of major adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Immunologic remission in rheumatoid arthritis, defined as the disappearance of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies and rheumatoid factor, was seen infrequently among patients achieving sustained clinical remission and did not correlate with the disappearance of symptoms, a long-term Dutch study found.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday, August 16, approved AbbVie JAK1 inhibitor, Rinvoq (upadacitinib) for adults with  rheumatoid arthritis with moderately to severely active disease either not responding to, or intolerant of, methotrexate (MTX). 

Dr. Jack Cush reports the news and important journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.

Serologic testing is the principal means of laboratory diagnosis of Lyme disease. Current recommendations include using a sensitive enzyme immunoassay (EIA) or immunofluorescence assay, followed by a western immunoblot assay for specimens yielding positive or equivocal results.

On July 29, 2019, the Food and Drug Administration cleared several Lyme disease serologic assays with new indications for use, allowing for an EIA rather than western immunoblot assay as the second test in a Lyme disease testing algorithm. Thus, serologic assays that utilize a second EIA in place of western immunoblot assay are acceptable alternatives for the serologic diagnosis of Lyme disease.

The German National Database (NDB) has reviewed their experience in the care and quality of life of inflammatory rheumatic disease patients snce 1993, showing improved use of metrics, improved outcomes and a changing profile of biologic and anti-rheumatic drug use.  

Do you know what the best-selling album of all time is? Could it be Bing Crosby? U2? Fleetwood Mac? AC/DC? I know, it’s Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” right?

Actually it’s the Eagles Greatest Hits – it surpassed Jackson’s Thriller in August 2019 as the best-selling with a total of 36 million copies sold since it was released in 1976. Wait! Are we not Rheumatologists? Aren’t we supposed to be discussing rheumatoid arthritis?

The ugly, legal, financial underbelly of US biosimilar drug development showed up in court last Friday, when a U.S. judge upheld two of Amgen's patents for Enbrel, thwarting a legal challenge by Novartis/Sandoz over its etanercept-szzs biosimilar, Erelzi.