Articles By Aurelie Najm, MD, PhD
Withdraw DMARDS after remission?
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.
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Methotrexate: shall we split up?
Methotrexate is widely used in rheumatic diseases yet poses common tolerance issues, especially for the oral form; and bioavailability is known to be limited for doses over 15mg. In the SMART study, Prasad et al. present the first RCT comparing either single dose (25 mg) or split-dose (10 mg morning, 15 mg evening, same day) once weekly MTX for 24 weeks.
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Sex bias in RA: time to stop blaming hormones?
Whether it’s RA, SLE or Sjogren’s, the increased prevalence of females affected by auto-immune diseases is well established, yet not fully understood. Often, I have heard that sexual hormones are responsible for every aspect of it. Two abstracts presented this year question this paradigm.
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Are T cells the missing link in pre-clinical RA?
T cells are known to play a key role in RA pathogenesis and the diversity of the T cell repertoire is known to be reduced in RA.
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RA and cancer risk in the biologic era
A nationwide population-based study, by Beydon et al. (OP0044), has performed a more recent (2010-2020) analysis of cancer incidence in people living with RA within the French national claim database, compared to general population, measured in the French Network of Population-Based Cancer Registries.
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ILD in RA and PsA
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a severe extra articular manifestation of RA, with limited treatment strategies and poor prognosis.
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RA: MACE Events with Opioids vs. NSAIDs
Addressing chronic pain often leads general practitioners and specialists to prescribe opioids. However, opioids (weak and strong) have not demonstrated efficacy in long-term pain management; their chronic use could even worsen pain in users. Opioids prescription is often perceived as being safer than NSAIDs prescription, especially in respect to MACE.
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Infections in pre-RA: a cause or a consequence?
Rheumatoid arthritis is known to be associated with a higher risk of infections. In abstract 0535, Porter and colleagues have assessed infection rates in the pre-RA and early RA phases as defined by antibiotics prescription and hospital admissions with an infection main diagnostic code in the UK National database.
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Survival and Mortality in RA: time to move away from “one-size fits all”?
Patients with RA are known to have a higher mortality risk than the general population.
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JAK/STAT pathway in pyoderma gangrenosum: a new therapeutic highway?
Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is rare, but often associated with different forms of arthritis, in particular rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases.
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