Articles By Mrinalini Dey, MD
Addressing CV Risk in RA: Are we doing enough?
ORAL surveillance was a post-authorisation safety study of tofacitinib 5mg and 10mg versus TNF inhibitors, focusing on rates of adverse events, including MACE. A higher incidence of MACE was observed with the use of tofacitinib. Statins are recommended in patients with a history of atherosclerotic disease or 10 year predicted risk of MACE. But, how many patients with rheumatoid arthritis, at risk of MACE, are actually taking a statin?
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Where there’s smoke, there’s flare: how pollution fuels RA
Associations between air pollution and disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis have previously been demonstrated. Abstract 0978 sought to determine the association between fire smoke and other pollutant exposures with the risk of RA and RA-associated interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD).
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Health Literacy: the forgotten social determinant of health?
Nine out of ten adults in the USA struggle to understand basic health-related information. Across the pond, in the UK, 7.1 million adults read at, or below, the level of a nine-year-old, with 60% unable to understand health information. An increasing body of research in rheumatic diseases has sought to understand the impact of health literacy, long neglected as a social determinant of health, on clinical and non-clinical outcomes. Several abstracts at this year’s ACR Convergence focus on this topic.
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SELECT-GCA suggests JAKis may be the new kid on the block
Clinicians treating giant cell arteritis (GCA) have long had to contend with a disappointingly limited selection of drugs from which to select. A new group of drugs is finally showing promise in the treatment of GCA.
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Difficult-to-treat RA: are we any closer to predicting who is at risk?
It is almost four years since EULAR published its definition of difficult-to-treat (D2T) rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (1). This marked a formal recognition of the group of patients who, despite the advances in pharmacological therapy for RA, remain symptomatic.
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Matters of the heart: cardiovascular disease and mortality in RA
Two large retrospective cohort studies presented by the team at Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN examine the burden of stroke, as well as overall and cause-specific mortality in people with RA (POS0591 and POS0592).
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Belimumab’s Sustained Impact in Lupus
In the wake of the EULAR 2023 guidelines on the management of SLE, it is perhaps pertinent that the EULAR 2024 congress features three abstracts from a large integrated analysis from five international Phase 3 belimumab trials in adults with active SLE (BLISS-76, BLISS-52, North East Asia, EMBRACE and BLISS-SC). Participants were randomised to belimumab (10 mg/kg/month intravenously or 200 mg/week subcutaneously) or placebo, plus standard therapy.
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Better assessment and management of multimorbidity
Appropriate assessment and management of comorbidities and multimorbidity in patients with RA is vital for overall health and well-being of the patient, as well as to encourage treatment adherence, and address social, psychological and quality of life factors.
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Work participation in patients with axial spondyloarthritis
Patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) often have increased absence from work as well as reduced productivity at work, which can have profound impacts for not only the affected individual and their families, but also lead to wider economic and social burden.
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Towards better assessment and management of multimorbidity
Appropriate assessment and management of comorbidities and multimorbidity in patients with RA is vital for overall health and well-being of the patient, as well as to encourage treatment adherence, and address social, psychological and quality of life factors.
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