Psoriatic Arthritis News

MAUI, HAWAII — Though approximately 25% of patients with psoriasis will eventually develop psoriatic arthritis, it remains unclear which patients will, according to a presentation here at Maui Derm for Dermatologists 2020.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis are more likely to achieve treatment targets, such as remission or low disease activity, with apremilast if they demonstrate moderate, compared with high, disease activity at baseline, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Although TNF inhibitor use was associated with an increased risk of serious infection among patients with psoriasis and self-reported psoriatic arthritis, recent data published in BMC Rheumatology found these differences were not statistically significant.

Adiposity — particularly central obesity — is associated with an increased risk for psoriatic arthritis, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Among patients with rheumatic diseases, treatment with any biologic increases the risk for tuberculosis, both reactivation and new-onset, with an incidence rate among biologic users that is 10 times higher in South Africa than in European countries, according to data published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis treated with secukinumab demonstrated early and sustained resolution of enthesitis, with 300 mg doses providing higher resolution than 150 mg in more severe cases, according to data published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

The rheumatology community lost clinician and educator Calvin R. Brown, MD, on Dec. 1, 2019. He was 66 years old. His final years were spent at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, practicing rheumatology and training fellows in the specialty.

If early therapy with DMARDs can slow disease progression and delay expensive biologic treatment, early screening for psoriatic arthritis among patients with psoriasis could save $220 million each year in Canada and improve quality of life, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Officials from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services have issued a public health advisory following multiple reports of serious adverse events in patients who were treated with unapproved stem cell products, particularly those marketed as containing exosomes.

New treatments and trial designs, particularly focused on patients with refractory disease, remain among the top unmet needs in rheumatology in 2019, according to expert opinions culled from the Advances in Target Therapies annual meeting and published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.