ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology’s 2020 annual meeting will be in Washington, D.C. November 6 - 11.

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American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting 2020 06-11 November 2020 Washington DC.

Accepted abstracts are made available to the public online in advance of the meeting and are published in a special online supplement of our scientific journal, Arthritis & Rheumatology. However, the ACR continues to require that information that goes beyond that contained in the abstract (e.g., discussion of the abstract done as part a scientific presentation or presentation of additional new ...

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The program has hundreds of sessions to educate professionals in every segment of rheumatology.

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the Association of Rheumatology Professionals(ARP) invite you to submit a case-based image and take advantage of the opportunity to have your work peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If accepted, your image will be digitally displayed in the distinguished international venue of ACR Convergence 2020 and be added to the ACR Rheumatology Image Libr...

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Dec 18th, 2019 - Several studies published over the last few years have shown declining rates of diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis in older adults. In part, this may be due to declining ability to diagnose osteoporosis because declining reimbursement for dual x-ray absorptiometry has made it less available to patients and doctors.

Dec 18th, 2019 - Treatment of osteoporosis in older adults at increased risk for fractures declined from 2010 to 2014, based on a study of nearly 900,000 individuals. Courtesy University of Alabama at Birmingham Dr.

Dec 18th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Use of high-concentration topical capsaicin was associated with reduced pain, a longer duration of clinical response, and was well tolerated in patients with knee osteoarthritis, compared with lower concentrations of capsaicin and placebo, according to recent research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Jeff Craven/MDedge News Tim Warneke While the.

Dec 17th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) 400 mg/day starting by pregnancy week 10 reduces recurrence of congenital heart block in infants born to women with anti-Ro antibodies, according to an open-label, prospective study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. M.

Dec 17th, 2019 - The American College of Rheumatology and the European League Against Rheumatism have released the first classification criteria for IgG4-related disease. Although it was first recognized as a distinct disease in 2003, investigators have since learned that IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is not particularly rare.

Dec 12th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients with Raynaud’s phenomenon and puffy fingers, disease-specific antibodies, and/or nailfold video capillaroscopy abnormalities were more likely to progress to systemic sclerosis within 5 years than were patients without those features, according to recent results from the Very Early Diagnosis Of Systemic Sclerosis (VEDOSS) study presented at the annual meeting of the American C.

Dec 11th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Adenosine deaminase 2 above the upper limit of normal is 86% sensitive and 94% specific for distinguishing macrophage activation syndrome from active systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, making it perhaps the most potent blood marker yet identified to differentiate the two, according to a report presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Dr.

Dec 11th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Treatment of polyarticular-course juvenile idiopathic arthritis with tofacitinib led to significantly fewer disease flares and greater improvement in disease activity than with placebo in a phase 3, multinational, randomized, double-blind, controlled withdrawal study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Jeff Craven/MDedge News Dr.

Dec 9th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients taking biologics who received latent tuberculosis testing on an annual basis were unlikely to convert from a negative QuantiFERON test to a positive result, which suggests that the test may be unnecessary for patients without new tuberculosis risk factors, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. In addition, nearly all of.

Dec 9th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients with rheumatoid arthritis were more at risk of postoperative infection because of a high Charlson Comorbidity Index or longer surgery time than because of perioperative use of antirheumatic medications, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Jeff Craven/MDedge News Dr.

Dec 9th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Soon-to-be-published gout guidelines from the American College of Rheumatology will recommend dosing allopurinol above 300 mg/day to get serum urate below 6 mg/dL, even in people with renal impairment. M.

Dec 6th, 2019 - The findings from the C-axSpAnd study that Jonathan Kay, MD, and colleagues reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology are not surprising. Earlier studies in patients with ankylosing spondylitis showed that short symptom duration is one of the best predictors of good treatment response to TNFi therapy.

Dec 3rd, 2019 - ATLANTA – Upadacitinib (Rinvoq), a selective Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) inhibitor, significantly improved the signs and symptoms of active ankylosing spondylitis, compared with placebo, in the randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 2/3 SELECT-AXIS 1 study. Dr.

Nov 25th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis of the hip and knee who took the investigational anti-nerve growth factor monoclonal antibody tanezumab experienced a significantly higher rate of joint safety events than that of patients who received NSAIDs as part of a recent randomized, double-blind, active-controlled, phase 3 study. Jeff Craven/MDedge News Dr.

Nov 23rd, 2019 - ATLANTA – Gout is associated with an increased risk of both fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease events, according to a large population-based health data linkage study in New Zealand. Sharon Worcester/MDedge News Dr.

Nov 21st, 2019 - ATLANTA – Ixekizumab (Taltz) provided significantly greater improvement in joint and skin symptoms, compared with adalimumab (Humira), in biologic-naive patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA), according to final 52-week safety and efficacy results from the randomized SPIRIT-H2H study. Dr.

Nov 21st, 2019 - ATLANTA – Adding ixekizumab (Taltz) to conventional background medications significantly improved the signs and symptoms of nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 COAST-X trial. Sharon Worcester/MDedge News Dr.

Nov 21st, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients with systemic sclerosis aged 44 years and younger in the United States now have mortality comparable to that of the general population in that age group, according to recent results presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Dr.

Nov 21st, 2019 - ATLANTA – Rituximab (Rituxan) is superior to azathioprine (Imuran) for preventing ANCA-associated vasculitis relapses in patients with histories of previous relapses, according to a randomized trial of 170 patients presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Dr.

Nov 18th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Elderly-onset and young-onset rheumatoid arthritis patients initiating treatment with biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) respond similarly with respect to clinical improvement at 48 weeks and adverse events, data from a large registry in Japan suggest. Sharon Worcester/MDedge News Dr.

Nov 15th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Patients with nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis who received secukinumab with or without loading doses showed improvements in physical function, quality of life, inflammation, and other disease signs and symptoms, according to results from a phase 3 study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology. Jeff Craven/MDedge News Dr.

Nov 13th, 2019 - ATLANTA – Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors almost quadrupled the risk of psoriasis in children with inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, or chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis in a review of 4,111 patients at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr.

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Knee OA is a disabling condition affecting over 14 million adults in the US. NSAIDs provide only short-term pain relief, creating the need for additional pain management. Growing evidence indicates that chronic knee OA pain is associated with centralized pain pathways. Based on these considerations, ACR and OARSI recommend or conditionally recommend the use of duloxetine. Th...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The goal of RA treatment is to achieve clinical remission or, at minimum, low disease activity (LDA). Modification of initial csDMARD therapy with the addition of a biologic (b) DMARD, such as a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi), or Janus Kinase inhibitor (JAKi) may be needed following an inadequate response (IR).1 Switches in mechanism of action have been advocated in ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Legalization of cannabis use is rapidly increasing worldwide, raising the need to evaluate trends and medical implications. A systematic literature review showed inconsistent results on tolerability and safety of cannabis-based medicines for any chronic pain [1]. Additionally, little is known about the use and effectiveness of cannabis in rheumatic diseases [2]. We sought to...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: DLE is a rare, disfiguring disorder in children. Small retrospective studies suggest 20-25% of patients progress to SLE. Progression risk factors are poorly understood, but DLE has been associated with delay in SLE diagnosis and reduced access to care. This multicenter retrospective cohort study aimed to describe baseline characteristics and clinical phenotypes of pediatric ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: To assess the cost-effectiveness of various combinations of urate lowering therapy (ULT) and anti-inflammatory treatment in the management of newly diagnosed gout patients, from the Dutch societal perspective.  Methods: The Anakinra versus Treatment as usual in the Treatment of ACute Gout (ATTACG) study was the  primary data source for  this study.  Since only patients with ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: We analyzed a phase 2 study designed to assess the efficacy of abatacept in patients with diffuse Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). In this work, we analyze data from ASSET and seek to confirm the hypothesis that patients in the inflammatory subset on abatacept show a significant decline in modified Rodnan Skin Score (mRSS), which is correlated to modulation of pathways related to t...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is an autoimmune vasculitis that causes aortic arch syndrome, blindnesss, and stroke. Embedded in granulomatous infiltrates, CD4 T cells persist over long periods in the inflamed vessel wall where they drive wall remodeling, intramural neoangiogenesis, intimal hyperplasia and luminal occulsion. To survive and function in a nonlymphoid tissue enviro...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disorder characterized by synovial hyperplasia, inflammatory cell infiltration and pannus formation. We have shown that soluble CD13 (sCD13) induces angiogenesis, monocyte and lymphocyte chemotaxis and arthritis through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). However, the receptor for sCD13 is not yet defined. Methods: A GPCR screeni...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Systemic autoimmunity associated with RA precedes the onset of inflammatory arthritis (IA) by several years. In particular, the presence of systemic anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibody is a strong predictor of developing classified RA in the future. However, the mechanisms involved in the transition from systemic anti-CCP to IA classifiable as RA are unknown. Ou...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: There is a need for clinically useful measures of cardiovascular (CV) risk in pediatric-onset SLE (pSLE). Nocturnal blood pressure (BP) non-dipping (loss of the physiologic nocturnal decline in BP) is a reversible marker of CV risk and potential treatment target that can be reproducibly measured by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). We assessed the frequency of non...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Musculoskeletal injury is a known risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA). Cumulative effects of comorbid conditions on the association of injury and OA have not been previously examined. The purpose of this study was to clarify associations between knee injury and radiographic knee osteoarthritis (rKOA) and determine whether associations vary by sex, race, body mass index (BMI)...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Systemic sclerosis (SSc), or scleroderma, is a heterogeneous disease that is divided into limited cutaneous (lcSSc) and diffuse cutaneous (dcSSc) forms based on the extent of skin involvement, and internal organ involvement also adds to phenotypic variability. The three main internal organ complications are interstitial lung disease (ILD), pulmonary arterial hypertension (PA...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Population mortality studies in the United States have previously reported a progressive increase in the scleroderma (SSc) mortality rates from 1959 to 2002. Identification of areas with clusters of higher mortality rates is important to implement targeted interventions and may provide clues about possible etiology factors, especially environmental. In this study, we aimed t...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) dactylitis is associated with an increased risk of erosions and higher disease activity. Dactylitis treatment strategies are however controversial due to the absence of evidence from randomized controlled trials studying dactylitis as a primary outcome. The objective of this trial was to assess the efficacy of golimumab in combination with methotrex...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Recently we have shown that both malondialdehyde-acetaldehyde adducts (MAA) and citrullinated proteins (CIT) are co-localized in joint and lung tissues of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Therefore, to investigate the possibility that these post-translational modifications pose a synergistic pathogenic role in RA, human synovial fibroblasts and lung epithelial cells ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The United States (US) knee osteoarthritis (OA) population has low levels of physical activity (PA), despite its well-defined health benefits. Interventions to promote PA are often stymied by concerns of lack of sustainability of intervention efficacy. We sought to evaluate lifetime benefits and cost-effectiveness of a short term (3-year) PA intervention in this population. ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a highly heterogeneous disease orphan of effective disease modifying agents. The diffuse cutaneous clinical subset (dcSSc) is currently targeted in most clinical trials. Nevertheless, there is still high variability in clinical outcome within dcSSc, which is limiting effective clinical trial design and interpretation. Global Ranked Composite Score...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Real-world evidence (RWE) is key to understanding post-approval long-term safety of medications. Tofacitinib is an oral Janus kinase inhibitor for the treatment of RA. A prospective observational 5-year study, embedded within the US Corrona RA registry, was initiated to evaluate the safety of tofacitinib after US Food and Drug Administration approval on Nov 6, 2012. The obje...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Lupus nephritis (LN) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. However, the pathogenesis of renal disease in lupus patients is not yet fully understood. CD6 is a co-stimulatory receptor, predominantly expressed on T cells, that binds to activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM), a ligand expressed on antigen presen...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Targeting the interleukin(IL)-1 pathway with anti-IL-1 drugs is a treatment option in patients with autoinflammatory diseases like monogenic periodic fever syndromes. The study aims to gain further insights into long-term effectiveness and safety of canakinumab (CAN), an anti-IL1 inhibitor, under routine clinical practice conditions in pediatric and adult patients with CAPS ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Fatigue is very common in SLE patients. We aim to: 1) determine if different trajectories of fatigue associate with specific latent classes of disease activity and 2) define the patient characteristics and associated factors in different latent classes. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis on a prospectively collected dataset from an inception cohort and followed from 1...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a clinically heterogeneous disease.  Disease subsets based upon cranial versus extracranial artery involvement have been proposed.  The study objective was to determine if GCA subsets are associated with distinct clinical profiles or merely reflective of differential diagnostic assessment. Methods: Patients were included from a large internation...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Nephritis is a severe manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) that develops in 30 to 50 percent of the patients. At the time of diagnosis, it is not possible to predict which patients will develop nephritis. CL-K1 (collectin kidney-1, collectin-11) is a soluble C-type lectin, with collagenous stalks like C1q, that through recognition of suitably spaced patterns o...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Structural changes, increased tissue citrullination, signs of local inflammation and anti-citrullinated protein autoantibodies (ACPA) are present in the pulmonary compartment of early untreated seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA). These findings provide evidence of a potential role for the lungs in generation and initiation of RA-associated autoimmunity. Here we aimed to ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Current classification criteria differentiate between Takayasu’s arteritis (TAK) and giant cell arteritis (GCA), the two most common forms of large-vessel vasculitis, based primarily on clinical assessment, yet patients with TAK and GCA may differ in patterns of arterial disease.  This study aimed to use computer-based algorithms to determine if patterns of arterial disease ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Cell-bound complement activation products (CB-CAPs) are stable forms of classical complement activation ex-vivo, with high sensitivity and specificity for systemic lupus erythematosus  (SLE). We sought to compare the performance of CB-CAPs to the gold standard low complement C3 or C4 in distinguishing SLE from other rheumatic diseases and healthy individuals. Methods: Multip...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major source of disability worldwide yet dietary exposures that might be associated with its progression have not received significant research attention. We aimed to examine the prospective association of major dietary patterns derived by principal component analysis (PCA) with symptomatic progression of knee OA. Methods: From the Osteoarthritis Ini...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The ultimate goal of therapy in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is clinical remission, defined as ‘the absence of clinical and laboratory evidence of significant inflammatory disease activity’.1,2 Since many patients with PsA may not achieve clinical remission, treatment recommendations recognise minimal or low disease activity as an important alternative treatment t...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Slow walking speed (WS) is a risk factor for mortality in well-functioning older adults and speeds slower than (< ) 1.22 meters per second (m/s) are a risk factor for poor health outcomes in knee osteoarthritis (OA). WS is known to decline with age, with some declining faster than other, though it is unclear if the rate of decline in WS is additionally relevant for mortality...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Prednisone is commonly used to treat rheumatic diseases, yet few comparative effectiveness studies on different dosing regimens are available. Electronic health records (EHR) and prescriptions are potential data sources for such research. However, a barrier to this work is organizing non-standardized prednisone “sigs”, or free-text instructions within a prescription, into a ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: In rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease outcomes  have improved enormously in the last  decades. Due to early initiation of therapy, a treat-to-target approach and a growing arsenal of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologicals, RA patients are in sustained remission more often. This raises the subsequent questions whether treatment should be continued, tape...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: In April 2019, FDA approved the first treatment, intravenous (IV) belimumab (BEL), specifically for children 5 to 17 years of age with active, seropositive SLE receiving standard care (SOC). The approval was supported by a single post-marketing required randomized, controlled trial (NCT01649765) that evaluated the efficacy, safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) of 10 mg/kg IV BEL...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Factors associated with diagnostic delay in Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM) are not known.  We hypothesized that limited access to pediatric rheumatologists can lead to delay in the diagnosis of JDM and worse outcomes. We investigated demographic factors, including access to care, associated with diagnostic delays and clinical outcomes of subjects with JDM in the Childhood Ar...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Gut microbiota may be relevant in the regulation of immune processes and in the development of systemic autoimmune diseases (SADs). A reduction of microbiota diversity and a selective decrease of commensal pro-regolatory bacteria have been observed in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjogren syndrome (SJS) and primary anti-phosholipid syndrome (PAPS). None studies have be...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Severe infections, frequently resulting in hospitalization, are a well-known adverse effects of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi). However, studies regarding outpatient treated infections are needed. Our objective was to investigate the use of antimicrobials (antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals; excluding antimycobacterials) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (R...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Sitting is associated with many poor health outcomes, which may include knee osteoarthritis (OA). When the knee is subject to minimal load, knee cartilage becomes thinner and may be more susceptible to damage. Thus, people who spend more time in sitting, whether during leisure time or during work, may be at greater risk for worsening structural damage in the knee. We examine...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether alterations in the splicing machinery of immune cells could influence the development and activity of the disease and the kidney involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Methods: Monocytes, lymphocytes and neutrophils from 43 SLE patients and 34 healthy donors (HD) were purified by immunomagnetic selection. The...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: To assess the risk of 30-day readmission, mortality, and adverse events among adults with Rheumatoid Arthritis as compared to Osteoarthritis after primary hip or knee arthroplasty. Methods: We identified index hospitalizations with a principal procedure of primary HA or KA using a nationally representative U.S. sample, the Nationwide Readmission Database (2010-2013).  Exclud...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The Lupus Low Disease Activity State (LLDAS) is a treatment endpoint for SLE that has been shown in prospective validation studies to be associated with protection against disease flares and damage accrual. In addition to improved physician-measured outcomes, attainment of treatment endpoints should also result in improvement in patient-reported outcomes such as health relat...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Recurrent pericarditis (RP) is characterized by the recurrence of pericarditis signs and symptoms after a symptom-free period of ≥4 to 6 weeks and affects 20-30 % of acute pericarditis patients. IL-1α/β, mediators of the inflammatory process, predominate in recurrent pericarditis (RP). Methods: Participants with symptomatic or corticosteroid (CS)-dependent idiopathic or post...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is the leading cause of mortality and carries significant morbidity in connective tissue disease (CTD). Corticosteroids are often used as first line therapy, yet the use of additional immunosuppressive (IS) agents remains largely empiric. In this study we evaluated the effect of Rituximab (RTX) as rescue therapy on lung function in a cohort of...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Current treatment guidelines for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) recommend a treat-to-target approach with early treatment initiation of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), most commonly methotrexate (MTX), and treatment escalation in case of insufficient response. In this scenario, similar efficacy of biological DMARDs (bDMARDs)  + MTX compared to conventional triple ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Tildrakizumab (TIL), a high-affinity anti–interleukin-23p19 monoclonal antibody, is approved for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis treatment and is under investigation for PsA. This study evaluated the 24-week efficacy and safety results from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-dose, phase 2b TIL study in patients with active PsA (NCT02980692). Methods...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Gout affects >4 million US adults aged ≥ 65 years, but little is known about the scale and drivers of public spending on gout medications, including colchicine.  Used for decades, its price rose drastically after one brand-name form (Colcrys) was granted market exclusivity from 2011-2014, as part of the FDA Unapproved Drugs Initiative. We quantified changes in total spending...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Cardiac manifestations of neonatal lupus (NL) have been associated with significant morbidity and mortality, however there has been minimal information on long-term outcomes of affected individuals.  This study was initiated to evaluate the presence of and risk factors associated with cardiac dysfunction in NL after birth in multiple age groups to improve counseling, further...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The impact of renal injury in lupus nephritis (LN) is widespread with consequences to resident cells in other tissue beds, even non-lesional, non-sun exposed skin. Faithful reflection of a relevant renal tissue pathway in a more readily accessible compartment would allow for less invasive diagnostic alternatives. While ongoing studies are exploiting single cell RNA sequencin...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: 18F-flurodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) is one of several imaging modalities used in the assessment of patients with large-vessel vasculitis (LVV).  Conventionally PET images are obtained 1 hour after radiotracer injection; however, delayed imaging may be more sensitive to detect vascular inflammation.    The objectives of this study were to: 1) determ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) is an autoimmune disease with various subsets and clinical manifestations. T lymphocytes are the predominant cell type found in lesional skin, but plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) and myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs) also play an important role in the pathogenesis. Oral antimalarials, including hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and quinacrine (QC)...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The protein A20, encoded by TNFAIP3, represses signaling upstream of the inflammatory transcription factor nuclear factor (NF)-kB by regulating ubiquitination. Heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in TNFAIP3 cause the systemic autoinflammatory disease Haploinsufficiency of A20 (HA20) [1]. Because no FDA-approved medications directly target NF-kB signaling, current HA20 th...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Efficiently identifying eligible patients is an important component of a successful clinical trial.  Billing codes from electronic health record (EHR) data are commonly used to first screen for potential patients, followed by labor-intensive chart review to identify the eligible patients by trial criteria.  The objective of this study was to test whether a machine learning s...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Secukinumab (SEC) has provided significant and sustained improvement in the signs and symptoms of active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and ankylosing spondylitis1. Evidence is limited on the efficacy of biologics in the treatment of patients (pts) with PsA having axial manifestations that affect between 30–70% of pts2, particularly as validated classification criteria for this s...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is characterized by peripheral synovitis, enthesitis, dactylitis and spondylitis, and IL-23 is involved in the pathogenesis of these conditions either directly or indirectly. Risankizumab (RZB), a potent humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody and selective IL23p19 inhibitor, exhibited superior efficacy vs placebo via ACR responses and PASI scores in pat...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: In prior cross-sectional analyses of African Americans (AA) with RA, we observed that low education, income and home ownership were associated with clinical damage and patient reported outcomes (PROs) among those with mean disease duration of 7.8 years. However, when restricted to those with disease duration of < 2 years, associations with PROs remained, but were no longer o...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The main goal of Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) treatment is to prevent attacks and subclinical inflammation. Mainstay of treatment is colchicine; however, 5-10% of patients are unresponsive to colchicine even in maximum tolerated dosage. Anakinra has been proven to be effective in controlled trials in terms of attack frequency and subclinical inflammation in colchicine ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The last 25 years, treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has changed considerably. Although clinically relevant joint damage has become infrequent, it is less established to what extent other long-term outcomes have improved. Moreover, anti-citrullinated anti-bodies (ACPA)-positive and ACPA-negative disease subsets were discovered and it is unknown they have benefited equal...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Although biologic therapies have transformed the outlook for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the lack of a major treatment response in over 50% of patients, the potential side effects and the high cost of these drugs have highlighted the need to define predictive markers of response and to stratify patients according to therapeutic outcome. B-cells are pivotal to RA pathogenesis,...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affects various organs and tissues, but whether pathologic processes in each organ are distinct or whether dysregulated molecular functions are found in common in all tissues is not known. We, therefore, conducted a meta-analysis of gene expression profiles in four affected SLE tissues to identify commonly dysregulated pathways. Methods: Ge...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) is the most common lung manifestation in Connective Tissue Diseases (CTD). It is present in most types of CTD, such as: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Systemic Sclerosis (SSc), Systemic Lupus Erythematous (SLE), Inflammatory Myositis (IM), Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD), Sjogren Syndrome and Sarcoid. Despite it being so common, treatment h...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Anemia, thrombocytopenia and leukopenia in RA patients treated with non-Janus Kinase 1 (JAK1) selective inhibitors may be due to inhibition of hematopoietic growth factors signaling through JAK2. Therefore, we investigated the extent of anemia, thrombocytopenia and leukopenia in patients with active RA with a prior inadequate response/intolerance to biological DMARD (bDMARD)...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Belimumab (BEL) is the first treatment approved for children with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from 5 years of age and older.1 This approval was based on the PLUTO trial (NCT01649765), which was designed to assess the safety and efficacy of BEL in children with SLE.2 Additional evidence to support the consistency of effect of BEL in children included an across-trial co...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a T lymphocytes-mediated inflammatory condition. Although regulatory T cells (Tregs) isolated from blood and psoriatic skin have been showed a functional deficiency in suppressing effector T-cells in PsA, absolute quantitative status of peripheral Treg or Th17 cells is still unclear. On the other hand, recent studies have revealed that low-dose I...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Takayasu arteritis (TAK) is a chronic vasculitis which predominantly affects large vessels. Although anti-endothelial cell antibodies (AECA) had been reported to be involved in vascular inflammation in TAK, their target antigens remained unclear. We had constructed an expression cloning system for specific identification of cell-surface antigens, which we named SARF. The aim...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Adaptive and innate immune pathways are involved in inflammation and pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation activates the innate immune system, and may be involved in the pro-inflammatory response to ACPA protein complexes found in severe RA.1 Interleukin (IL) receptor-associated kinase 4 (IRAK4) is a key signal transducer downstream ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous disease with > 100 known risk alleles. Some of these risk alleles associate with ACR SLE criteria such as renal disease. We examined if nine of these SLE risk alleles would identify autoimmune features in a population without diagnosed autoimmune diseases. Methods: We investigated subjects from BioVU, a databank that link...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The direct and indirect effects of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are difficult to measure in observational studies because: (1) The inflammatory effects of RA are difficult to separate from underlying age-sex related risk of comorbid conditions (2) Long-term large sample follow-up of patients is expensive, arduous, and difficult to standardize (3) Limited methods for selecting a...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Autologous hematopoietic stemcell transplantation (HSCT) has shown to improve survival of SSc patients with poor prognosis, but is hampered by treatment related mortality (TRM). Better selection of eligible patients could improve outcomes. Objectives: 1. To evaluate event-free survival, TRM and response after HSCT in SSc and 2. To explore patient characteristics that associa...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: Synovial B cell aggregates in patients with early Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) have been associated with disease severity and radiographic progression. Here, we analysed the presence of B cells and their association with clinical outcomes in matched synovial biopsies pre- and post- treatment with conventional synthetic Disease Modifying anti-Rheumatic Drug (scDMARDs). Methods: ...

Nov 13th, 2019 - Background/Purpose: The heterogeneity of the clinical manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and lack of a diagnostic test make SLE difficult for epidemiologists to study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supported five population-based SLE surveillance registries, using harmonized methodology, to better estimate incidence and prevalence of SLE in diverse areas...