Vasculitis and Giant Cell Arteritis News

Targeting the complement pathway using a C5a agonist may be a “game changer” in anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody vasculitis, according to a speaker at the Basic and Clinical Immunology for the Busy Clinician symposium.

Giant cell arteritis and COVID-19 both feature headache, fever, elevated C-reactive protein and cough as symptoms, whereas jaw claudication, visual loss and platelet and lymphocyte counts may be more discriminatory, according to findings.

Uveitis has a “significant impact” on visual functioning and vision-related quality of life among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

This episode walks us through the initial research that paved the way for a game changing therapeutic in ANCA vasculitis, as well as the story of how host Adam J. Brown, MD, finally learned how to spell complement.

Patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease exhibited a higher incidence of COVID-19 hospitalization than the general population, and those with rheumatoid arthritis are at a greater risk for severe outcomes, according to data.

Although the risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease has lowered, it is nonetheless still significant, according to data published in The Lancet Rheumatology.

When a disease has no clear etiology and no cure — as is the case with Takayasu arteritis — any advance feels like a big advance.

Patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases and COVID-19 may be at greater risk for hospitalization, ICU admission, acute renal failure and venous thromboembolism, according to data published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Thoracic aortic dilation is more common among patients with giant cell arteritis, but the subsequent risk for aortic repair, rupture or dissection is low, according to data published in Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism.

An OMERACT working group has developed and approved a core set of five domains — disease activity, new organ involvement, quality of life, adverse events and death — that are mandatory for study in all Behçet syndrome trials.