Dr. Jack Cush reviews the new studies and drug approvals and new insights into febrile disorders from the past week on RheumNow.com Ustekinumab (IL-12/23i) phase 2 study was successful in #SLE; but the phase 3 LOTUS study of 512 pts, UST was NOT superior to PBO (SRI-4 44% v 56%) at 1 year. Study was halted for lack of efficacy (but no safety concerns). https://bit.ly/3RvPzDm

Horizon has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the expanded labeling of pegloticase (Krystexxa) injection to be co-administered with methotrexate (MTX), to improve response rates in patients with uncontrolled gout.

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients can be safely treated with allopurinol without an increased risk of mortality.

Despite updated gout management guidelines from European (EULAR) and British (BSR) societies, treatment of gout is suboptimal with regard to the use of urate-lowering therapy (ULT) and normalizing serum uric acid (< 6.0 mg/dl) levels.

Topical treatments have so often been the low level “sure you can try this” option. However there are exciting data that these approaches may become part of our main armamentarium. 

Urate lowering therapy (ULT) is the backbone therapy for long-term gout treatment and maintenance, but real-world gout management is often imperfect and suboptimal.