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)…
The Rheumatology Research Foundation has been actively involved with the NIH’s Accelerating Medicines Partnership for Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (AMP RA/SLE) program, launched in 2014 as a public–private partnership to spur development of new therapeutic options for RA and lupus. Recently, the NIH released new datasets that will help clinical investigators accelerate therapies…
SAN DIEGO—Proposed classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which are supported but not yet approved by the ACR and EULAR, debuted on Nov. 7 at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. An international steering committee developed and validated the criteria, with patient input and the consensus of more than 150 global SLE experts. Researchers referred…
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune-mediated rheumatic disease characterized by multisystem involvement that can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is a rare, fulminant, autoimmune-mediated, demyelinating disease involving the white matter of the central nervous system (CNS), and is considered a manifestation of neuropsychiatric lupus. Few reported cases involve SLE and…
A recent epidemiologic study of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) investigated racial and ethnic differences in the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Among SLE patients enrolled in Medicaid, the risk for myocardial infarction (MI) was lower in Hispanics and Asians compared with whites, and the risk of stroke was higher in blacks and Hispanics…
They say the body remembers what the mind wants to forget. For those who have experienced trauma, not only does the body remember, in some cases it works on making things worse. Such is the situation with trauma and lupus, says a new study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology in October. The study, titled, “Association…
To correctly address a problem, one must have a handle on its nuances—a clear understanding of what is linked and how. And thus far, when it comes to lupus, we haven’t reached the point of understanding those intricacies. Things are heading in the right direction, however, with two new studies that get us much closer…
MADRID—Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) experts in North America and Europe are working together to refine the classification system for the disease, with the goal of producing a new set of criteria that is simpler to use and more scientifically rigorous than any classification approach previously published, speakers involved with the process said at the 2017…
MADRID—Researchers have found that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is independently linked with bipolar disorder and say the findings point to a need for greater awareness of psychiatric problems in patients with SLE. In work led by investigators at Tel Aviv University in Israel and presented at the 2017 Annual European Congress on Rheumatology (EULAR), researchers…
CHICAGO—“Why do so many drugs fail in clinical trials?” asked Michael Brenner, MD, chief of rheumatology, immunology and allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. This question, previously posed by Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health, prompted a discussion among scientists and stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry. The conversation…