Juvenile Arthritis News

The use of TNF inhibitors to treat juvenile idiopathic arthritis, pediatric inflammatory bowel disease and plaque psoriasis in children did not increase the risk for malignancy, according to findings published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Cyclophosphamide improved skin, global and muscle symptoms related to juvenile dermatomyositis when used as a second-line treatment, with no short-term side effects, according to findings published in Arthritis and Rheumatology.

Rheumatology is a subspecialty in internal medicine and pediatrics that deals with the joints, soft tissues, autoimmune diseases and heritable connective tissue disorders. A rheumatologist specializes in the diagnosis, treatment and therapy of the rheumatic diseases.

The expansion of switched memory B cells is faster among patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis compared with healthy children, and the effect is particularly evident in children with early-onset disease, according to findings published in Arthritis and Rheumatology.

Anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy demonstrated greater benefits and clinical outcomes compared with conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in children with enthesitis-related arthritis the first year after diagnosis, according to findings published in the Journal of Rheumatology.

Consensus treatment plans can help reduce variation in treatment approaches, identify effective treatment strategies and standardize outcomes for pediatric patients with rheumatic diseases, according to a recent review published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, improvements in health-related quality of life scores were delayed compared with disease activity, pain and disability, a disparity that indicates the need for both preference-based and nonpreference-based surveys to assess patient well-being, according to findings published in Arthritis Care Research.

Children born to mothers with rheumatoid arthritis have an increased risk for chronic diseases, including thyroid disease, epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis, during childhood and adolescence, according to findings published in Arthritis Care and Research.

Children with Takayasu arthritis who were treated with biologic therapies exhibited significantly less flares and attained inactive disease status more often than children who received non-biologic treatments.

A large segment of patients with systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis experienced a significant response to treatment with tocilizumab or the interleukin-1 inhibitors anakinra and canakinumab, according to study findings published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.