It’s time for Rheumatology RoundUp from EULAR 2026 from London, UK. Drs. Artie Kavanaugh and Jack Cush review their choice presentations from the meeting, offering their perspectives on impact and applicability.

CAR-T at #EULAR2026 raised as many questions as it answered. Here's what we know, what we're still asking, and why the answers matter.

Dr. Sun et al. from Duke University presented abstract POS0692 during one of the poster sessions entitled, “Lupus patients with concurrent inflammatory activity and symptom burdens have the lowest medication adherence and experience distinct adherence barriers.” They evaluated differences in self-reported medication adherence and reasons for nonadherence across Type 1 & 2 SLE classification groups, with a prespecified focus on comparing the Mixed Activity group to all other groups.

The last day in London was exciting as both the Late-Breaking abstracts and new EULAR guidelines were presented.

CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy has rapidly moved into autoimmune disease, driven in large part by striking reports in SLE, where sustained drug-free remission has raised the possibility of a true immune reset. In RA, where multiple effective therapeutic classes already exist, the relevance of such deep immune interventions remains uncertain.

Day 3 was an interesting mix of posters, oral presentations, and review sessions on many practical subjects like osteoarthritis, large vessel vasculitis, systemic sclerosis, and pregnancy. Here are a few of my recommended abstracts from Friday at EULAR 2026.

The approach to the treatment of peripheral SpA has been the same for a long time. The guidelines recommend starting with NSAIDs, escalate to conventional synthetic DMARDs, typically sulfasalazine or methotrexate and reserve biologics for patients who fail those. According to a new phase 3 trial presented at EULAR 2026, there may be a different way to approach this.