New research indicates that vaccination for the herpes zoster virus in patients with rheumatoid arthritis starting tofacitinib appears to be both safe and useful. Rheumatologists may want to check the patient’s pre-existing immunity status prior to administering the vaccine…
Although research regarding the increased cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has burgeoned in recent years, the need remains for a better understanding of the effects of widely used DMARDs on CV risk and risk factors in RA patients. These authors set out to evaluate the long-term changes in cholesterol levels in patients with early RA. Decreases in RA disease activity over long-term follow-up were associated with increases in cholesterol levels in patients with early RA treated with either biologic or nonbiologic therapies…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is associated with a significantly increased risk of adverse cardiovascular (CV) outcomes and all-cause mortality, according to Danish researchers. HS is a chronic, inflammatory skin disease and is most common in women. It is typically diagnosed after long delays, Dr. Alexander Egeberg of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues…
A recent Phase 3 clinical trial found apremilast safe and effective for treating patients with active psoriatic arthritis and skin symptoms who found conventional and biologic DMARDs ineffective…
(Reuters)—Amgen Inc. and Belgium-based UCB SA said on Monday that their osteoporosis drug met all the primary endpoints by reducing the incidence of new vertebral fracture in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis in a late-stage study. The topline results, from a Fracture study in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis (FRAME), showed that the drug romosozumab met a…
SAN FRANCISCO—A 40-year-old woman shows up in the clinic with scarring alopecia, with an area of hyperpigmentation on the rim of her scalp, extending from just behind the temple to behind her ears. An examination with a dermatoscope shows hyperkeratotic follicular plugging. The case—in this example, the discoid form of cutaneous lupus erythematosus (DLE)—is one…
Osteoimmunology is an emerging field that focuses on the interaction between bone and the immune system. CD4+ T cells play an important role in the bone marrow and modulate the differentiation of bone-resorbing osteoclasts. This article reviews the role of CD4+ T cells as an osteoclastogenic population in inflammatory bowel disease…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The route of iron replacement therapy alters the gut microbiome and metabolomics in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but the route is unrelated to disease activity and quality of life, according to a new study. “Crohn’s disease patients are extremely fragile to disturbances and one might speculate about consequences in long-term…
SAN FRANCISCO—T follicular helper (Tfh) cells are emerging as an important subset of cells now recognized as important to facilitating an adaptive immune response. Developed during dendritic cell priming in vivo, these cells represent one subgroup among many of effector cells that result after naive CD4+T cells differentiate. Other well-known subgroups include Th1 cells, Th2…
SAN FRANCISCO—Evolving research into the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is increasingly showing that rather than a single causative dysfunctional pathway leading to disease, multiple pathways are involved, the study of which can shed additional light on what is occurring in a person’s body prior to developing symptoms of disease. Saying it another way, no…