At EULAR 2025, Dr. Laura Coates (Oxford) took the plenary stage to reframe how we think about treating psoriatic arthritis. The message was clear: in 2025, PsA treatment is no longer about following a linear algorithm; it’s about understanding the unique constellation of domains, comorbidities, and patient factors that shape each clinical decision.
Gout flares are associated with cardiovascular events. Treating gout to target serum urate level prevents flares, but whether such treatment can also prevent cardiovascular events is unknown.
Highlights from today included presentations on imaging in vasculitis, a debate on whether to treat high risk pre-clinical RA, and EULAR Recommendations on a) Treatment of interstitial lung disease (ILD); b) Physical Activity in people with arthritis; and c) EULAR disease activity score for antiphospholipid syndrome and d) the management of SLE nephritis. Below are a few others that caught my eye today.
At EULAR 2025, there have been new developments in imaging in PsA.
At a EULAR 2025 session titled “What makes ‘Difficult-to-treat RA’ so difficult to treat? And what can we do?”, Drs. Paula David and Dennis McGonagle introduced the emerging concept of polyrefractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a term now being used to describe a subset of patients who have failed to respond to five or more biologic or targeted synthetic DMARDs. This new classification, derived from recent multinational registry data,
The VEDOSS project has previously shown that 70% of patients with Raynaud’s phenomenon and at least one red flag – systemic sclerosis (SSc)-specific antibodies, puffy fingers, or an SSc pattern on nailfold capillaroscopy –will fulfil the 2013 ACR/EULAR SSc criteria within 5 years.
IL-17 inhibitors are an effective therapeutic for a broad spectrum of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and its blockade has revolutionized management of diseases such as psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and SpA. Is there a need for more medications within the same therapeutic class?
New work presented at the 2025 annual EULAR congress in Barcelona focuses on the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV), which contains recombinant glycoprotein E – the major target of CD4+T-cells. The abstract describes the tolerability and safety of RZV in patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (iRMD), showcasing interim data from an ongoing study.
Social determinants of health (SDH), such as socioeconomic status and educational background are factors that are increasingly recognised as critical contributors to health outcomes in chronic diseases. Understanding how certain factors impact different RMDs is important, and new research into this for both systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and inflammatory arthritis was presented at the 2025 annual EULAR congress in Barcelona.
Is there a higher risk of cancer that comes with the disease? Or with the treatments? So many confounding parameters, such as disease duration, disease state, and disease activity come into play. A promising session explored comorbidities in Rheumatoid Arthritis, in particular cancer and cardiovascular events. Here are my takeaways.
Day 2 was a full agenda for those attending EULAR 2025 in Barcelona with sessions on the management of RA, Behcets, Lupus and Hand Osteoarthritis. Clinical overviews on MAS, Ehlers-Danlos, Difficult to treat RA and PsA offered a wide variety of options to rheumatologists. Here are a few interesting presentations from today.
The longest studied drug for uveitis in SpA has been monocolonal TNFi Abs. Reductions of acute anterior uveitis have been found with etanercept but less impressively than adalimumab, infliximab, and in my opinion less than golimumab and certolizumab pegol.
Other data have emerged for JAKi and IL17i, with respect to acute anterior uveitis.
Connective tissue diseases (CTDs) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) represent a challenging intersection of systemic autoimmunity and progressive respiratory impairment. Research presented at EULAR 2025 continues to highlight the importance of CTD-ILD and the evolving landscape of therapeutic options for patients with autoimmune ILDs.
Two recent studies suggest there is no significant benefit of early biologics over standard step-up care with methotrexate2,3, but these did not select for poor prognosis.
Wednesday was Day One at EULAR 2025 in Barcelona. Thousands from around the world gathered, eager to reunite at this international educational forum. Below are a few of my favorites from Day 1.
