Video: Every Case Tells a Story| Webinar: ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Vasculitis

Malignancy Risk in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis Is Lower with Rituximab

Marilynn Larkin  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Compared with cyclophosphamide, rituximab treatment poses less malignancy risk in patients with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV), European researchers report. Dr. Emma E. van Daalen of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands tells Reuters Health, “Previous studies reported an increased malignancy risk in patients with AAV, which has been associated…

New Large-Vessel Vasculitis Therapies Emerge, but Better Options Still Needed

  |  

LONDON—New therapies are emerging for the two main forms of large-vessel vasculitis, giant cell arteritis (GCA) and Takayasu’s arteritis—particularly biologic therapies. But for just about every available treatment gap, drawbacks or limited evidence remain, with the results needing to be borne out in larger trials, an expert said at the Annual Congress of the European…

Diagnostic Criteria, Classification Lacking for Vasculitis; New Research in Treatment for Systemic Sclerosis

  |  

LONDON—Despite the detailed terminology for describing vasculitis established by the Chapel Hill Consensus (CHC) in 2012, the field badly needs better classification and diagnostic criteria for the group of diseases, an expert said in a presentation at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR 2016). It’s a topic that is now being…

Treatment Challenges, Uncertainty Abound with IgA Vasculitis

  |  

CHICAGO—Diagnosing and treating IgA vasculitis—leukocytoclastic vasculitis involving deposits of IgA1 deposits on the walls of small vessels—is rife with uncertainties, outright unknowns and treatment challenges, an expert on the disease said at the ACR’s 2016 State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium. Alexandra Villa-Forte, MD, MPH, staff physician at Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Vasculitis Care and Research, said IgA…

Heterogeneity of Vasculitis Challenges Rheumatologists

Larry Beresford  |  

SAN FRANCISCO—The heterogeneity of systemic vasculitis, a set of diseases characterized by inflammation of blood vessel walls, presents rheumatologists with diagnostic and treatment challenges, said Sharon A. Chung, MD, MAS, director of the University of California, San Francisco Vasculitis Clinic, at the California Rheumatology Alliance 2016 Scientific & Medical Meeting in May. She outlined emerging…

Diffuse Alveolar Hemorrhage Secondary to Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody–Associated Vasculitis: Predictors of Respiratory Failure and Clinical Outcomes

  |  

A variety of immune and nonimmune pathophysiologic mechanisms causing the disruption of alveolar capillaries with bleeding into the alveolar spaces can lead to diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH). Immune-mediated mechanisms can cause DAH with or without the presence of capillaritis. The antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)–associated vasculitis (AAV) syndromes—granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA)—are the…

Clues to Diagnosing, Managing Vanishing Aneurysms

Taral Parikh, MD, G.C. Yathish, MD, Parikshit Sagdeo, MD, Balakrishnan Canchi, MD, & Gurmeet Mangat, MD  |  

Case report: A 27-year-old male was referred to the rheumatology outpatient department in February 2015 from the urology department after complaining of recent-onset uncontrolled hypertension (220/160 mmHg), headache and vomiting. In 2010, he was admitted to the urologist for sudden-onset left lumbar region pain and recent-onset hypertension. Clinical examination and the blood tests were normal….

Idiopathic Lung Fibrosis—Check for ANCA

  |  

New research recommends that doctors test the sera of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA), as well as closely monitor this population for signs of lung vasculitis…