WASHINGTON, D.C.—New insights into maintenance therapy for patients with vasculitides were covered by several speakers at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting abstract session titled, Vasculitis I: Novel Approaches to Therapy. Expert Hubert de Boysson, MD, MSc, of the Internal Medicine Department at Caen University Hospital in France, led discussion on new therapies for patients with…
Soon, rheumatologists may have another drug to offer their patients with refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RRA) for whom effective and safe treatment remains challenging. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that patients with RRA treated with once-daily baricitinib in a 4 mg dose had a significant clinical improvement in symptoms of…
Although gout is one of the most effectively treated of all rheumatic diseases, it is among the worst-managed diseases long term, as shown by many studies. “Treatments are excellent, yet are dramatically under-utilized,” says Theodore Fields, MD, FACP, rheumatologist, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), New York. “This is because some gout patients feel better between…
Obesity has an established systemic inflammatory component. Could that be a trigger for the inflammation seen in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other rheumatic diseases? Although there is no direct scientific evidence, both mechanistic and epidemiologic clues do give some intriguing suggestions of a possible link. “At first, we thought that fat was involved only in…
According to a new study, patients with aggressive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have lower levels of non-esterified fatty acids, which coincide with an enhanced Th1 response. Researchers suggest that lower EPA and DHA at the onset of RA may exacerbate inflammation, and fatty acids may become a novel therapeutic target for the disease…
When Abby Paterson, PhD, started her doctoral work in product design and technology at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom in 2009, she says 3D printing was little known by clinicians or the general public. Now, the technology is seemingly everywhere. For Dr. Paterson, the advancing science has led to a promising project focused on…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Disease remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with a lower risk of developing metabolic syndrome, according to a new study from Thailand. Researchers also found that a lower educational level was linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome, they report in Joint Bone Spine, online May 26. Dr….
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Aggregated results from three studies of patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis show that Eli Lilly’s injectable drug ixekizumab can completely resolve the plaques in about one third of cases after 12 weeks of treatment. And with continued therapy every four weeks, at least half maintained or attained complete resolution of…
(Reuters Health)—Medical devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are often cleared before studies on their safety or effectiveness have been released to the public, a report suggests. Without published data, doctors and patients may not be able to make informed decisions about whether to use the products, the authors warn. The…
Recent clinical trials have shown that baricitinib is safe and effective for treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis who have proved non-responsive to multiple biologic treatments…