Lupus News

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and lupus often avoided office visits and lab testing in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data published in The Journal of Rheumatology.

Treatment access issues and distress related to COVID-19 are highly associated with disease activity and flare among patients with rheumatic disease, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

The FDA has approved belimumab in intravenous and subcutaneous formulations for the treatment of lupus nephritis in adult patients who are receiving standard therapy, according to a press release from GlaxoSmithKline.

The mortality risk for a 35-year-old patient with a rare autoimmune rheumatic disease during the COVID-19 pandemic is similar to that of a 55-year-old in the general population, according to UK data published in Rheumatology.

Systemic lupus erythematosus is 2.3 times more prevalent among patients with psoriatic arthritis compared with the general population, according to data published in The Journal of Rheumatology.

There were approximately 1.3 billion cases of musculoskeletal disorders worldwide in 2017, leading to 121,300 deaths and 138.7 million disability adjusted life years, according to findings published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Sepsis has surpassed pneumonia as the most common hospitalized infection in systemic lupus erythematosus, with a rate that has increased more than six-fold from 1998 to 2000 to 2015 to 2016, according to data published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases are less likely to avoid an office visit or laboratory tests due to COVID-19 and were more likely to have telehealth visits, according to a speaker at ACR Convergence 2020.

Adding belimumab to standard therapy improves renal outcomes, biomarker levels and overall disease activity among patients with lupus nephritis, according to a speaker at ACR Convergence 2020.

Depression, anxiety and suicide ideation are all elevated in pediatric and adolescent rheumatology populations compared with the general population, according to a presenter at ACR Convergence 2020.