“Pregnancy never used to be discussed at these meetings,” Dr. Cush said. “We’ve come around to the idea that a healthy baby is the result of a healthy mom. The ACR has done a good job with this, including its reproductive health initiative.”
Spondyloarthritis
Dr. Cush also discussed the abstract titled, “Diagnostic Delay in Spondyloarthritis.”
“In this study, they investigated 201 patients with low back pain. In 2010, it took an average of 48 months for low back pain patients to get to the rheumatologist, and in 2019, it’s 12 months. That’s a good trend, but there’s still work to be done,” he said.
Machine Learning
Finally, Dr. Kavanaugh noted the study, “Individually Tailored Predictions of Flare Probability for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients on Biologic DMARDs Based on Machine Learning Stacking Meta-Classifier.”
In this study from Germany, researchers examined the clinical data of 41 RA patients on biologic DMARDs from a phase 3, multicenter, randomized, open, prospective, controlled, parallel-group study. Their results confirm the feasibility of guided tapering of conventional and biologic DMARDs based on machine-learning models and also proves that such models could be a reliable risk assessment tool for flare in the future.
“If there’s a theme at this [Annual Meeting], it seems to be a focus on the trend toward artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Dr. Kavanaugh said. “Almost every third poster is covering it. And I understand why. There’s too much data to wade through to make it meaningful. Machines can recognize patterns.”
Mike Fillon is a healthcare writer living in the Atlanta area.
Abstract Links
You can find all of the abstracts presented at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting online.
