COVID-19 vaccination, treatments for rheumatic disease and more—the Late-Breaking Abstracts session of ACR Convergence 2021 highlighted six studies with implications for rheumatology.
In February A&R, Penso et al. reported on the results of their study, which explored whether patients with psoriasis, PsA and AS have a higher risk of developing IBD when treated with an IL-17 inhibitor compared with apremilast, a phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) inhibitor, or etanercept, a TNF inhibitor.
A larger proportion of patients with gout had a therapeutic response at six months when treated with methotrexate and pegloticase than with pegloticase alone, according to results from the multi-center, open-label MIRROR (methotrexate to increase response rates in patients with uncontrolled gout receiving KRYSTEXXA) study, recently published in the Journal of Rheumatology.1 The MIRROR study…
In January A&R, Simon et al. report a study to assess humoral and cellular immune responses after infection with, or vaccination against, SARS-CoV-2 in patients with B cell depletion and controls who are B cell competent, finding that B cell depletion completely blocks humoral but not T cell SARS-CoV-2 vaccination response. In the same issue, Connolly et al. evaluated disease flare and post-vaccination reactions in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases following messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination.
ACR CONVERGENCE 2021—The ACR Convergence 2021 meeting reflected the continued advancement of science and practical research in the field of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Among the most important topics this year in RA was the evolution of the risk-benefit profile of Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, for which new safety data emerged in a series of related…
The ACR highlights essential information for providers for 2022 MIPS reporting in the 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule, published Nov. 2.
ACR Convergence 2021—On Nov. 5, Karen H. Costenbader, MD, MPH, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, and director of the lupus program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, gave a whirlwind review of the most important clinical rheumatology publications of the past year. Testing New Medications for Rheumatic Disease ADVOCATE Trial of Avacopan Dr. Costenbader first…
The final rule, issued Nov. 2, finalizes many proposed policies, including a decreased conversion factor, billing for shared visits and teaching services, continuation of telehealth services and inclusion of an ACR-led Merit-Based Incentive Payment System Value Pathway.
EULAR—Passive exposure to smoking during childhood or adulthood increases the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a large prospective cohort study of healthy French women presented during EULAR’s 2021 virtual European Congress of Rheumatology. Moreover, the association was mainly observed among women who had themselves never smoked.1 “In this study, we found an…