Day 3 EULAR Report Save

Day 3 was an interesting mix of posters, oral presentations, and review sessions on many practical subjects like osteoarthritis, large vessel vasculitis, systemic sclerosis, and pregnancy. Here are a few of my recommended abstracts from Friday at EULAR 2026.

• ASTER - Anifrolumab (ANI) in SLE (OP0342). This observational, a real-world study of 530 lupus patients,examined the effects of ANI after five years. At baseline the SLEDAI-2K score was 7.7 and after 12 months, this improved by -4.6.  Overall 86% of patients decreased their SLEDAI-2K activity score and had less organ involvement with time. The greatest degree of change was seen in skin, musculoskeletal, and hematologic outcomes. ANI improved SLE patients but mainly in skin, joint, immunologic, and hematologic outcomes, as that was the profile of those enrolled.  Far fewer patients had renal, vascular, CNS, or cardiovascular disease at entry.  Larger cohorts like this and time (F/U) will tell who will benefit most from ANI therapy in SLE.
• Probiotics in Psoriatic Arthritis. (POS0290)   A group of Austrian investigators conducted the MEDISPA trial that examined the effects of probiotic therapy on disease activity outcomes. 66 PsA patients with CASPAR criteria PSA and moderate disease activity were randomized to receive either placebo or probiotic containing lactobacillus and bifidobacterium strains for 12 weeks.  The primary outcome was low disease activity or remission using the PASDAS < 3.2. Unfortunately, placebo was better than probiotics at week 12 (65% versus 43% responses). Also there were no significant results regarding secondary outcomes as well. This trial proves no significant effect with oral probiotic supplementation in PsA. It's unclear whether a different probiotic with more CFUs and more strains might have performed differently. This type of trial is difficult to do and recruit for.
• Deucravacitinib (DEUCRA) in PsA at 52 weeks POS-288) - The results of the POETK PsA-1 & 2 trials were previously published showing that DEUCRA was superior to placebo at week 16. This study reveals the 52-week extension results and whether commitment methotrexate (MTX) altered outcomes. A total of 648 PsA patients were studied, with two-thirds of csDMARDs at baseline. The ACR 20/50/70 responses were not affected by the added use of MTX. The ACR20 was 64% without MTX vs. 61% with MTX. Similarly results showed an ACR50 of 41% with MTX vs 39% without MTX.  The MDA did not differ with or without MTX (39% versus 36%). Safety and secondary outcomes were also unaffected by MTX use.  These data failed to show an added benefit to combining DEUCRA with methotrexate.