Neutrophils, often hailed as guardians against infections, are maligned when it comes to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) due to their role in both the initial stage and disease progression. A new multicenter work, “A Neutrophil Activation Biomarker Panel in Prognosis and Monitoring of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis,” seeks to expand the literature on this topic.1 The…
Interventions targeted at mitigating the risk of preeclampsia may reduce preterm birth and cesarean delivery in women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and psoriasis. That’s one key finding of a retrospective study published in Arthritis Care & Research.1 The study set out to quantify the mediated effects of autoimmune conditions on adverse…
Research in The New England Journal of Medicine has opened new avenues for exploring the pathophysiology of disease flares in rheumatoid arthritis.1 Through longitudinal genomic analysis, researchers have identified a naive B cell signature prior to rheumatoid arthritis flares, as well as a type of mesenchymal cell, that may play an important role in flare…
In 2018, the Rheumatology Research Foundation embarked on its third and most ambitious fundraising campaign, the Leading Boldly: Transforming Rheumatology campaign, with a goal of raising $75 million over five years. The campaign supports Foundation programs to recruit the best and brightest into the field, train rheumatology health professionals at all career stages and support…
A large, international team of rheumatologists, geneticists, hematologists and other researchers has discovered a severe inflammatory syndrome linked to an acquired genetic mutation in the bone marrow of older men. The X-linked syndrome, they found, is caused by a somatic mutation in myeloid stem cells that hobbles the master regulator of a pathway tasked with…
Gender plays a role in career advancement among academic rheumatologists in the U.S., according to a new study by Jorge et al.
During ACR Convergence 2020, Jinoos Yazdany, MD, MPH, discussed innovative research into a potential treatment for lupus, medication tapering & more. These findings may influence the treatment of rheumatic disease in the future.
In this large placebo-controlled trial, Sparks et al. examined the predictors and severity of pulmonary adverse events (AEs) in patients taking low-dose MTX. The researchers found that low-dose MTX increased the risk of pulmonary AEs, including possible pneumonitis.
ACR CONVERGENCE 2020—This has been a busy year for research publications covering a number of pediatric rheumatic diseases, including the emerging multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) associated with SARS CoV-2. Despite the many challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, a healthy collection of publications covering a wide range of pediatric rheumatology research topics were published…
ACR CONVERGENCE 2020—Held Nov. 5–9, the ACR’s first fully virtual annual meeting provided participants with a vast repository of new research related to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). To help you sort through the noise, Elizabeth (Blair) Solow, MD, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatic Diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, offered …