Rheumatology Research Foundation Funds 5 COVID-19 Studies for $1.65 Million

The five projects chosen for funding will investigate various facets of the intersection between COVID-19 & rheumatology, including the use of telehealth, patient outcomes & health-related quality of life after COVID-19 infection, & the link between outcomes & immune response.

“We’re still structuring how to do this, but our goal is to come up with a practical and easy way for rheumatologists to get a very good, objective sense of how patients are doing and thus fulfill the treat-to-target paradigm requirements using telehealth,” Dr. Venuturupalli says.

Patient Outcomes After COVID-19 Infection

Two Foundation-funded projects will look at patients with rheumatic disease who had COVID-19 infection, and how this affects quality of life and treatment.

Patients with rheumatic disease sometimes have severe or long-term effects of COVID-19, which results in ongoing detriment to quality of life. Kristin D’Silva, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, is investigating the short- and long-term effects of COVID-19 on respiratory function and quality of life in her study, Respiratory Complications of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Rheumatic Diseases. Dr. D’Silva received a Scientist Development Award for this project.

“Over the past year, our patients have had significant concerns that they may be at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes due to immunosuppressive medications, a chronic inflammatory state, and comorbidities,” Dr. D’Silva says. “This award will help us conduct further research to answer these questions of great importance to our patients.”

Dr. Venuturupalli

The investigators will accomplish this by comparing patients who have systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) to healthy controls. Patients are being matched for age, sex and date of infection. The study includes short- and long-term measurement of respiratory outcomes.

For the short-term portion of the study, Dr. D’Silva and her research group will continue the work they’ve been doing since the onset of the pandemic to identify predictors of severe outcomes, specifically among patients with SARDs. Early results indicate these patients are more likely to require mechanical ventilation,
a risk that may be mediated by comorbidities.

For the long-term portion of the study, the team will use patient surveys to investigate respiratory outcomes and general health-related quality of life 12 months after COVID-19 infection. They’ve started surveying patients already and will continue doing so for the next two years.

Rebecca Haberman, MD, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and her team are using patient surveys and questionnaires to enroll patients in a prospective study that will help elucidate the incidence of and outcomes from COVID-19 related to immunomodulatory therapies in patients with inflammatory arthritis (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis). At the beginning of the pandemic, the immediate need Dr. Haberman saw was regarding medications.