Deucravacitinib (Sotyktu), a first-in-class, oral, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor, is the only approved TYK2 inhibitor worldwide and the first innovation in oral treatment for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in nearly 10 years.

Can we predict the bad outcomes? Like when ITP evolves into SLE; or when psoriasis will develop arthritis; or if Sjogren's will develop lymphoma? Let's dive in and review these journal reports and this past week's news from RheumNow.com.

Dr. Jack Cush discusses declining survival rates in the USA, FDA approvals of new COVID subvariant boosters and other odd and possibly true new research reports from the past week on RheumNow.com.

This week's NEJM has published the efficacy results of a large phase 3 trial of olokizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody that directly targets IL-6 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. This is in contrast to two other marketed IL-6 inhibitors (sarilumab, tocilizumab) that bind to the IL-6 receptor.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from this past week on RheumNow and discusses a case of refractory juvenile dermatomyositis with calcinosis.

The DESIRES trial studied rituximab (RTX) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and showed clinically significant improvement in skin and lung outcomes after a subsequent 24-week open-label extension phase.