Spondyloarthropathies News

Pfizer announced Inflectra, a biosimilar to Janssen’s Remicade, will ship to wholesalers in the United States in late November of this year, according to a press release. In response to the news, Janssen has released a statement.

The FDA has approved Amjevita, a biosimilar to Humira, according to an FDA press release.

In patients with spondyloarthritis affected by concomitant fibromyalgia, researchers found disease activity as measured by the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index may be overestimated.

Demographic and methodologic characteristic differences may explain the large variations in reported spondyloarthritis prevalence rates.

There are more questions than answers about the role of the human microbiome in rheumatic diseases. Moreover, there are more questions than answers about the microbiome itself, and its role in and on the human body. Experts are beginning to understand how the microbiota interact with the host, how the thousands of species of microbes communicate with each other and how all of these various interactions contribute to both health and disease.

In this issue, Healio Rheumatology covers the expanding implications of the microbiome in autoimmune disease as the notion of the microbiome is now widespread and is heard across multiple disciplines. Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg has coined the microbiome “the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space.”

The development of anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha–based therapies for the treatment of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis has been a major advance in the management of these conditions.

Results from this study indicated serum C-reactive protein level as a predictive biomarker for long-term progression of ankylosing spondylitis among patients who underwent treatment with golimumab.

As results showed a significant variation in patient-acceptable symptom state and minimum clinically important improvement values depending on disease duration and baseline disease activity in patients with ankylosing spondylitis, researchers suggested a cutoff of 1.1 for the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index and 0.6 for the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index.

Results from this study found CT scans that indicated the presence of ankylosis or showed a total erosion score of at least three could be used to identify patients at high risk of sacroiliitis.