Patients in intensive care may experience dangerous manifestations of rheumatic disease, such as digital ischemia, multi-system organ failure and more. In a session at ACR Convergence 2021, experts addressed how to manage and treat these critically ill patients.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—COVID-19-infected patients with rheumatic disease were more likely to experience respiratory failure than those without rheumatic disease, according to a retrospective study in China. “Immune dysregulation underlying rheumatic diseases may affect the disease manifestation of COVID-19,” Dr. Jixin Zhong of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, tells Reuters Health by email….
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most common autoimmune diseases. One hypothesis is that inflammation in the respiratory tract results in autoantibody formation that later leads to disease. Kronzer et al. set out to narrow the knowledge gaps related to the oral-respiratory factors that may mediate RA pathogenesis.
A recent systematic review found no clear evidence that rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with cyclophosphamide have better lung function than those treated with mycophenolate mofetil. The researchers caution that physicians should expect treatment with cyclophosphamide may only result in a modest improvement in the preservation of forced vital capacity…
Necrotizing autoimmune myopathy (NAM) is a relatively recently discovered subgroup of inflammatory myopathies. NAM is characterized by predominant muscle fiber necrosis and regeneration with little or no inflammation.1 One subgroup of NAM is 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase antibody (HMGCR Ab)-related immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM), which occurs (rarely) after statin exposure, with a rough incidence of two per…
A study that found men with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) died from respiratory-related illness nearly three times as often as the general population could provide insight into possible treatment options and lifestyle changes that would help them live longer. The Study Researchers at the Veterans Affairs Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System and University of Nebraska Medical…
Data from Nurses’ Health Study, other clinical trials point to higher risk of respiratory, cardiovascular disease death in women with RA
A 48-year-old man with diffuse arthralgias and acute respiratory failure is diagnosed with antisynthetase syndrome