Lupus News

DESTIN, Fla. — Patients who develop lupus nephritis within their first year of being diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus have a 23.2% risk of renal failure within 20 years, according to findings presented at the 2018 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

DESTIN, Fla. — Rheumatoid arthritis demonstrated a statistically significant increase in mortality between 2005 and 2015, bucking a downward trend for mortality in most other rheumatologic diseases, according to findings from a national study presented at the North American Young Rheumatology Investigator Forum.

DESTIN, Fla. — Among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, 16% also met the criteria for myocardial infarction and 28.8% had prescriptions for statins, according to findings presented at the 2018 National Young Rheumatology Investigator Forum.

DESTIN, Fla. — There is a 53% higher prevalence of depression associated with rheumatoid arthritis, and a 21% higher prevalence in systemic lupus erythematosus, although depression severity was only demonstrated among patients with the former, according to findings presented at the 2018 North American Young Rheumatology Investigator Forum.

For patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis and Sjögren’s syndrome, the productivity costs due to loss of paid and unpaid work were substantial, particularly due to presenteeism and unpaid work impairments, according to findings published in Arthritis Care and Research.

Black patients with systemic lupus erythematosus demonstrated an increased comorbidity burden in every organ system compared with both whites with lupus and healthy blacks, according to findings published in Arthritis Care and Research.

The nature of the relationship that patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases have with their rheumatologist can greatly affect perceptions of — and experiences with — their medications, according to findings published in BMC Rheumatology.

BOSTON — Several biologic therapies used by rheumatologists, including rituximab, tocilizumab, abatacept and others, can increase the risk for infectious disease in patients, according to findings presented here.

BOSTON — The potential rheumatic side effects of checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with cancer can include arthralgia, arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, giant cell arteritis, myositis, sicca syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus, and can be chronic in approximately 50% of patients, according to findings presented here.

BOSTON — Although nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and calcium supplements are often used to treat patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, physicians — and rheumatologists specifically — should be mindful of the potential complications and complexities that sometimes accompany them, a presenter warned at the 2018 Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit.