Rheumatoid Arthritis News

United Rheumatology and CreakyJoints have announced a partnership to launch the Rheumatoid Arthritis Wellness Center, a digital resource that aims to offer support to patients living with RA, according to a press release.

The safety signals for cardiovascular events and malignancy associated with Janus kinase inhibitors in rheumatoid arthritis have led to rheumatologists increasingly reaching for abatacept instead, according to data.

Despite guidelines recommending early and aggressive therapy in rheumatoid arthritis, disease-modifying antirheumatic drug adoption for older patients remains low, according to data published in ACR Open Rheumatology.

Nurse-led education for patients with rheumatoid arthritis or spondyloarthritis, who are beginning biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, is effective at changing behaviors to prevent adverse events, according to data.

Influenza vaccination coverage in adults with early rheumatoid arthritis in Canada remains “suboptimal,” according to data published in ACR Open Rheumatology.

Joint replacement in patients with inflammatory arthritis is often beset with pitfalls like disease flares and infectious complications, and up until recently, the emergence new treatments were rendering the current guidelines outdated.

The upcoming influx of new biosimilar drugs to the market could mitigate the cost of biologics to treat inflammatory diseases, said Steven Newmark, director of policy and chief legal officer for the Global Healthy Living Foundation.

Frailty is common in patients with early and established rheumatoid arthritis, is potentially responsive to early treatment, and predicts all-cause mortality and hospitalization, according to data published in RMD Open.

Patients who face long-term exposure to air pollution demonstrate a higher risk for developing autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, according to data published in Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases.

This month, we are so lucky to have such an extraordinary panel of experts in the field of rheumatoid arthritis — Daniel Aletaha, MD, MSc; Stanley Cohen, MD; Bryant R. England, MD, PhD; Roy Fleischmann, MD; and Liana Fraenkel, MD, MPH — debate the merits of remission vs. low disease activity as the desired target in the therapy of rheumatoid arthritis.