Juvenile Arthritis News

SAN DIEGO — An internet-based education and management program, paired with monthly health coaching, significantly improved health-related quality of life and disease management skills among teenagers with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to findings presented at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting.

Healio.com Rheumatology features five news items about juvenile arthritis. More coverage can be found by clicking here.

In children with oligoarticular and polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis, discontinuing treatment prior to 2 years after remission was associated with a greater chance of relapse, according to recently published findings.multicenter, retrospective study, researchers evaluated clinical chart data of 349 patients followed for JIA at three rheumatology clinics in Italy between January 2000 and March 2016. Eligible patients were on biologics initiated before 18 years of age and had been in clinical remission after a first cycle of biologic treatment for at least 6 months. Patients were also required to have stopped all treatments, including disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, for at least 3 months. After applying these criteria, the researchers identified 135 eligible patients (38.6% were female patients; overall median age was 14.6 years).

The most important challenge facing pediatric rheumatology is a lack of pediatric rheumatologists, according to many experts in the field. The shortage of clinicians has a ripple effect. It impacts the amount and nature of research conducted in the field. Communication gaps exist between young patients, their parents and clinicians, largely because many people simply do not realize rheumatic diseases can occur in children. Diagnoses are delayed. While treatments can be more or less effective in children compared to adults, primary pediatricians or general practitioners may not be familiar with these uses. All of this points to suboptimal patient outcomes.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Female and younger siblings of children who have been diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis are at higher risk of anxiety compared with children whose siblings have not been diagnosed, according to data presented here at the Rheumatology Nurses Annual Conference.

ORLANDO, Fla. — “Most periodontitis cases among children and adolescents occur as manifestation of certain systemic disease with an impaired immune system that compromises their response to microbial plaque,” study author Nancy Delnay, CNP, MSN, RN, wrote in a poster presented at Rheumatology Nurses Annual Conference.

There was a detrimental effect of juvenile idiopathic arthritis on health-related quality of life after 30-year follow-up, according to a recently published study.

Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month is observed each July to raise awareness of the disease, which, according to the NIH, affects about 294,000 children in the United States. Although the disease can go into remission as the child grows older, there is still no cure.

The American Heart Association awarded the Children’s National Health System a grant to launch a rheumatic heart disease center, according to a press release.

The European Medicines Agency has recommended the approval of the Imraldi, making it the third anti-TNF biosimilar candidate to receive a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, the manufacturer announced.