CHICAGO—Warren Piette, MD, professor of dermatology at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, updated rheumatologists on the topic of cutaneous vasculitis at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. He began by explaining that the current vasculitis criteria developed by the ACR in 1990 and the Chapel Hill Consensus Conference (CHCC) in 1994 are inadequate to incorporate…
A recent study examined the relationship between increased BMI and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody–associated vasculitis treatment with glucocorticoids. The results: Weight gain was independently associated with reductions in disease activity, increased glucocorticoid exposure and randomization to rituximab. The most significant increases in BMI occurred during the first six months of treatment, and newly diagnosed patients were more likely to experience an increase in BMI…
A recent study showed that patients with eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis taking mepolizumab had longer disease remission than those on placebo. Some patients were able to discontinue prednisone during the study…
For patients with rheumatic disease, general treatment guidelines for managing cardiovascular risk are suboptimal, says Katherine Liao, MD. A patient’s level of disease activity and inflammation affect their risk…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Rheumatologists do not have up-to-date diagnostic and classification criteria for vasculitis, a group of diseases that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, said experts speaking at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting session, Classification Criteria for ANCA-Associated Vasculitis. The most recent classification criteria were published by the ACR in 1990, and since then, new disease…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Experts speaking at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting session, Update on Small-Vessel Vasculitis, offered insight into the latest approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases involving the inflammation of blood vessels. “Vasculitis is an immune-mediated process. White blood cells invade the vessel wall, causing inflammation throughout the vessel wall,” said Jason M. Springer,…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Intraocular vancomycin may lead to potentially blinding hemorrhagic occlusive retinal vasculitis (HORV), a new study suggests. “The importance of this study was to present in a number of patients overwhelming evidence that rarely, intraocular vancomycin is associated with sight-threatening retinal vascular occlusion,” says lead author Dr. Andre J. Witkin of Tufts Medical…
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…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The vast majority of the attention given to vasculitis at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, year after year, focuses on ANCA-associated vasculitis and large-vessel vasculitis, said Philip Seo, MD, MHS, director of the Johns Hopkins Vasculitis Center and moderator of the 2016 ACR Review Course titled, Neglected Vasculitis. That leaves out a lot. “These are…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—From diagnosis questions to infection risk to treatment decisions, handling giant cell arteritis (GCA) and polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) comes with a range of challenges for clinicians. Speaking in the ACR Review Course at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, an expert—Rebecca Manno, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine in rheumatology at Johns Hopkins, as well…