Does cognitive dysfunction in SLE patients result from persistent inflammation characterized by ongoing disease activity? Recent research examining this question found no inflammatory mechanism associated with cognitive dysfunction in this patient population, underscoring previous research findings…
CHICAGO—Neonatal lupus is a rare disorder, but its onset can be dramatic, and it can be fatal. Clinicians must be armed with information to manage it and help guide parents through difficult decisions, an expert said in April at the State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium. Despite the name, neonatal lupus does not mean that either the mother…
CHICAGO—The promise of precision medicine—the tailoring of treatment to a given patient based on genetics and other factors—has probably been best illustrated in oncology, with therapies targeted specifically to markers expressed on tumors. But rheumatology is in the thick of precision medicine as well, said Judith James, MD, PhD, chair of the arthritis and clinical…
Could your lupus patients benefit from limiting exposure to chemicals at home and in the medical environment? It’s a strong possibility, according to the preliminary findings of a research team investigating DNA methylation disruption in patients with SLE…
New research suggests the downregulation of CD3ζ contributes to the altered function of NK cells in SLE patients, which may contribute to the increased risk of viral infections in these patients…
New research suggests that antiplatelet therapy may improve the estimated glomerular filtration rate in lupus anticoagulant-positive patients with lupus nephritis. Researchers found these patients had a higher eGFR level after three years than lupus anticoagulant-positive patients who did not receive antiplatelet therapy…
Calciphylaxis is a poorly understood and life-threatening ischemic vasculopathy characterized by calcification of the small- and medium-size arteries in the skin, subcutaneous tissue and internal organs, which leads to thrombosis, tissue necrosis and painful skin ulcerations that won’t heal. The disease has a 50–80% mortality rate. Although affected patients typically have end-stage renal disease (ESRD)…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Subcutaneous belimumab improves outcomes in anti-dsDNA-positive hypocomplementemic patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), according to results from a Phase 3 randomized, controlled trial. Intravenous belimumab is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of patients with active, autoantibody-positive SLE who are receiving standard…
A recent study explored medical concerns for patients who have lupus markers, but fall short of meeting enough criteria for official disease classification. Investigators at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation conducted a large study to explore current treatments of patients with incomplete lupus erythematous (ILE) and to compare antibody characteristics to healthy people and patients…
SAN DIEGO—What are the predisposing genes that suggest who will develop active systemic lupus erythematosus and who will stay healthy? Decades of research data help rheumatologists clarify this picture, says Argyrios N. Theofilopoulos, MD, professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. At his Nov. 5 lecture at the 2017…