The FDA recently announced approval for intravenous secukinumab (Cosentyx) for adults with psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and non-radiographic spondylitis. Data for this new approval will be presented at ACR Convergence on November 14th by Dr. Atul Deodhar.

These year’s annual ACR Convergence has been a success with the return of an insanely active Poster Hall! F2F learning amidst miles of research and many young talented aside wizened establish presenters is such a welcome return to ACR, the way it should be.

Highlights from today included the induction of our new ACR President Deborah Dyett Desir (from Yale Univ.) and a host of new officers.  This along with cutting edge research during the plenary session and the Late-Breaking Abstract posters was just the tip of the iceberg of rheumatology research presentations.

Should rheumatologists be counseling patients on cervical cancer prevention and screening? The data from Abstract #1479 at ACR Convergence 2023 suggests that this should be an important conversation with our female lupus patients. The results of the PAPILUP study presented by Dr. Tiphaine Goulenok reviewed their findings of cervical cancer risk in patients from France.

Chronic low back pain is a common complaint that brings patients to the doctor’s attention. Although the majority of low back pain is mechanical in nature, an important minority is inflammatory in nature. Therefore, prompt referral to a rheumatologist is warranted particularly in the presence of other features suggestive of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). Early diagnosis and treatment of axSpA improves patient outcomes and can delay progression of disease. 

You can see that the JAKi/TYK2i have both approved or potential seropositive and seronegative indications. There are also improvements in PsO for the class and studies in CTDs. So, it is difficult to know which to choose.

We have become accustomed to the 60/40/20% rule for the outcome of ACR 20/50/70 respectively for biologics and targeted synthetic DMARDs. When a new agent is launched, we look out for the treatment response with much anticipation if it will be higher or lower than the benchmark we expect. 

The possibility of withdrawing DMARDs after patients achieve remission has been in our minds for a while. Yet when our patients ask whether it is a good idea to taper or stop their DMARD when they are doing well, most of us don’t have a black or white answer for them. The arrival on the market of several biosimilars and very reassuring long term safety data with bioDMARDs also provides encouraging prospects for longer term exposure.