Difficult-to-Manage Spondyloarthritis

Studies show that patients with difficult-to-treat axial spondyloarthritis had more disease activity and greater peripheral involvement, with extra musculoskeletal manifestations and fibromyalgia. The ACR Convergence 2024 session on Difficult-to-Manage Spondyloarthritis will focus on patients for whom first- and second-line therapies have failed or who have persistent extra-axial manifestations of disease despite these treatment options.

The session, to be held on Nov. 17, will also address patients with comorbidities that could affect future treatments, such as liver dysfunction or chronic infections, and the treatment of advanced disease in which differentiation needs to be made between pain due to chronic secondary damage and that due to persistent inflammatory changes.

Speakers will include Dennis McGonagle, MD, PhD, of the University of Leeds, U.K., on Therapy Selection in Difficult to Manage Spondyloarthritis; and Liron Caplan, MD, PhD, section head of rheumatology at the Rocky Mountain Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Denver, on Chronic Pain in Spondyloarthritis: Differentiating Active Disease From Fibromyalgia.

Watch this space for a full report on this session following the meeting.