Education on MACRA is the key to successful survival. The important take home points noted in Dr. Will Harvey’s lecture at ACR 2016 (session title: Holy MACRA! How to Survive and Thrive in the New Era of MACRA, MIPS, and APMs) are stated below.

The potential association of herpes zoster with giant cell arteritis (GCA) has been a debated topic and certainly has gotten some attention at ACR 2016 this year.

Is the microbiome influenced by wines "terroir" (“the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate”)? Len Calabrese believes so.

Diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (dcSSc) is one of the most difficult autoimmune diseases to treat. In case of major organ involvement (lung, kidney), prognosis is poor and treatment options are limited. The Cyclophosphamide Or Transplantation  (SCOT) multicenter trial was designed to evaluate for long term benefit of myeloablative autologous hematopoetic stem cell therapy (HSCT) over cylcophosphamide (CYC).

The New England Journal of Medicine has reported the results of a large clinical trial demonstrating the efficacy of ustekinumab (Stelara) in treating patients with active Crohn's disease (CD). (Citation source http://buff.ly/2gsSNcs)

It is well known that ANCA-associated vasculitides can be hard to control and relapses are common. The choice of maintenance therapy is rather limited and therapies are not always effective.In the past, the randomized controlled prospective MAINRISTAN trial demonstrated superiority of rituxan (RTX) over azathioprine for maintenance of remission at 22 months in patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis after CYC remission induction.

The offspring of women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may be at greater risk for the development of epilepsy, according to a recent report in the journal Neurology, suggesting that epileptogenic triggers may begin during pregnancy and may be worsened by RA flares or the treatment for RA.  (Citation source: http://buff.ly/2g4QgSD)

Dr. Philip Mease, MD presented the long-term efficacy and safety data for secukinumab in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) at the ACR Annual meeting in Washington, DC. (abstract 961)

Washington is always a great city to visit (even though there were a few protesters floating around the streets). I hope the posts I made were of interest to some readers. Here are my top 5 highlights from ACR 2016:

The final day of the 2016 annual ACR meeting saw the return of "Rheumatology Round-up" at 7:30am in Hall D.Drs. Jack Cush and Artie Kavanaugh started with announcing that this was the 80th annual scientific session for the ACR and that this meeting had over 17,000 attendees, nearly 3250 abstracts and over 200 sessions. 

The notion of a single biologic targeting two cytokines is intriguing. ABT-122 is a new dual-variable domain immunoglobulin that neutralizes both TNF-α and IL-17A.

All week I’ve attempted to catch the spirit of ACR and rheumatology in a picture or quote, but after attending ACR 2016 in Washington, DC, I found myself surrounded by examples.

Some big highlights from Tuesday at the 2016 ACR/ARHP annual meeting included the PRECISION trial, EXXELERATE trial and the new anti-IL-23 in psoriatic arthritis.

The PRECISION trial was published this week in the NEJM, presented at the Cardiology meetings in New Orleans, and presented today by Dr. Daniel Solomon at the 2016 ACR annual meeting in Washington, D.C. (citation source http://buff.ly/2fUmoqO) The trial that in 2005 set out to establish the comparative safety of celecoxib, ibuprofen and naproxen has been delivered with a bang.