Rheumatoid Arthritis News

BOSTON — Biosimilar competition in Europe has significantly decreased the cost of medication, and has not only increased biosimilar availability but also increased the market share of bio-originators for which there is no biosimilar, according to a speaker at the 2018 Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit.

BOSTON — The recently published results of the CANTOS trial, which demonstrated that targeting inflammation significantly improved cardiovascular mortality outcomes, could drastically impact the focus of treatment for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, according to recent presentation here.

BOSTON — Advances in the understanding of epigenetic modifications — changes in gene activity without changes in DNA sequencing — could lead to the development of new biomarkers and potential therapies for immune-modulated inflammatory diseases, according to a presentation given at the Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit.

BOSTON — Rheumatologists, gastroenterologists, dermatologists, immunologists and other health care providers who care for patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases will gather at the Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit in Boston this weekend for a collaborative discussion of treatment strategies.

During a joint meeting of the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, members voted 15 to 5 that the cardiovascular risk of celecoxib was no worse than the risk associated with naproxen or ibuprofen among patients with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.

SAN DIEGO — Although often considered a rare subset of rheumatoid arthritis, palindromic rheumatism remains a controversial diagnosis with conflicting data supporting its status as a separate disease entity and as a preclinical form of rheumatoid arthritis, according to a presenter at the United Rheumatology National Meeting.

The FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee voted 10 to 5 to recommend approval of a once-daily 2-mg dose of baricitinib for the treatment of adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to methotrexate.

Thirteen-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is immunogenic among patients with rheumatoid arthritis and Sjögren’s syndrome who have not been treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, according to findings published in BMC Rheumatology.

Filgotinib monotherapy or in combination with methotrexate rapidly improved self-reported quality of life measures among patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and sustained those measures through 24 weeks, according to findings published in Arthritis Care and Research.

Nearly 25% of U.S. adults between 1999 and 2014 reported having arthritis, according to a recently published study in the American Journal of Public Health. Investigators found the prevalence of osteoarthritis doubled with time and the prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis decreased during the study period.