Anti-Rheumatic Rx

Drs. Jack Cush & Arthur Kavanaugh, two of rheumatology’s most trusted voices, provide a breakdown of the latest breakthroughs and hottest topics in rheumatology from the 2025 ACR Convergence meeting in Chicago.

Here's the last installment of our "ACR Best" abstracts as chosen by the RheumNow faculty.  Most of these were from the final, day 4, but a few were noteworthy holdovers from day 3. Enjoy!

Dr. Jack Cush recaps ACR2025 with suggestions on how to best learn ACR25 content from RheumNow.com and our articles, videos and podcasts.

They say the easiest bit about GCA, like PMR, is the first week after you start steroids. Those fond memories belie the challenge of ongoing treatment in GCA. In a steroid-only world, there is only misery. Steroid-sparing therapies have changed this completely.

Day 3 in Chicago is hump day, the last big full day of presentations and posters.  The day began with an 8AM plenary session, which brings me to the first of my three notables from today:

Methotrexate (MTX) remains the cornerstone of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment, yet it remains unclear as to how to predict who will respond to it. Two studies presented at ACR (Abstracts 2639 and 2643) suggest the answer may be hiding in the gut.

Tweeting about an ACR presentation or poster is a skill and sometimes art -- one that is mastered by the RheumNow faculty roving the halls and floors for the best new insights at ACR Convergence 2025.  Below are several of the best abstracts from Day 3, as chosen by our outstanding faculty.

At ACR 2025, the session “27M02: Nutrition for Rheumatic Disease: Where Aging Biology, Sarcopenia, and Diet Intersect” invited the audience to view rheumatic disease through the lens of biological aging and to consider how nutrition and exercise can serve as integrative lifestyle interventions.

Here are 3 abstracts that caught my eye on Day 2 at ACR25. Notably these have takeaway messages that should support your current practices.

ACR 2025 began today in Chicago with throngs of rheumatologists, fellows, ARP members, APPs and pharma folk taking to the meeting halls and rooms for tons of novel content. 

The RheumNow Faculty have run through day one at ACR25 and come with a few of their favorites - some what you expected but some of these are gems.

Is there ‘bang for the buck’ using big data to help predict who will develop RA in at-risk populations and similarly to predict response to csDMARDs, TNFi and JAKi in RA?

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and info reports the day before ACR 2025