A two day FDA review by the Drug Safety and Risk Management and Arthritis Advisory Committees has yielded a 19-1 vote against the approval of tanezumab, a nerve growth factor inhibitor, for use in osteoarthritis (OA).
In case you missed it, RheumNow Live 2021 delivers what it promises: a good consistent program pack with high energy interactive learning. In the Day 1 learning pods, the audience was given a tour of the new drugs in development for RA. Several noteworthy ones were highlighted by Dr. Roy Fleischmann as listed below:
A large cohort study of expectant fathers treated for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) failed to show any detrimental effect from paternal exposure to immunosuppressive or biologic agents on offspring outcomes.
Pegloticase is indicated in the treatment of severe gout patients but prolonged use may be limited by immunogenicity to the PEG moiety. A randomized, controlled trial has shown that concomitant mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) may prolong the efficacy of pegloticase in gout.
While rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is not known to affect the liver directly, underlying liver disease and treatment-related effects on the liver can often become an obstacle in the management of many RA patients. In his Sunday presentation at RNL2021, Dr. Stanley Cohen detailed many issues liver disease that arise in the course of RA management and ways to overcome them.
There are no current FDA approved therapies for rheumatoid arthritis associated interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) or bronchiectasis, but a recent retrospective cohort study showed equivalent outcomes when RA-ILD patients were treated with either rituximab or janus kinase inhibitors.
Dr. Jack Cush rants on the journal reports, news and FDA actions featured this past week on RheumNow.com.
Several weeks ago, at the Rheumatology Winter Clinical Symposia, an interesting debate between Drs. Orrin Troum and Marty Bergman hashed over the concept of whether rheumatologists should sub-specialize with a practice, research or career devoted to one disease ("Super Rheum"), or be "selective" about what disorders and diseases they would treat or just be a generalist.
Palmoplantar psoriasis (PPP) is a therapeutically challenging variant of psoriasis; nonetheless, a prospective, randomized, active-controlled trial from India suggests that apremilast is effective and safe in patients with PPP.
JAMA Dermatology has published a Danish national cohort study showing that potent topical corticosteroid use was associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis and major osteoporotic fractures with a dose-response association for cumulative use.
A multicentre, retrospective study examined MSA profiles (by immunoprecipitation) from 96 juvenile idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (JIIM) at nine pediatric rheumatology centres in Japan. MSA were found in 85 of 96 cases with over 90% of patients having one of the following three MSA types:
Schett and colleagues studies the secukinumab (an IL-17 inhibitor) response in patients from 3 clinical trials with enthesitis and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and demonstrated consistent efficacy with improved enthesitis scores at both peripheral and axial sites.
Patients with rheumatic diseases who developed COVID-19 were at increased likelihood of death, with risk factors similar to those seen in the general population but also because of factors specific to their underlying disease and its treatment, analysis of data from an international registry found.
Dr Jack Cush reviews the news, Journal reports, CDC guidelines and viewer questions from the last week on RheumNow.com

