Vasculitis and Giant Cell Arteritis News

Switching to a biosimilar would be a “feasible treatment choice,” and is associated with maintaining clinical efficacy in patients with noninfectious uveitis who previously received the reference biologic, according to data published in Frontiers in Pharmacology.

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.

A need exists for treatments for specific eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis and medications to control symptoms and improve outcomes in patients with asthma, according to findings published in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology.

When journalist Ben Hammersley coined the word “podcast” in 2004, he was attempting to put a name to the phenomenon resulting from the timely convergence of widely available MP3 player technology, inexpensive audio software and weblog culture — a renaissance of radio programs that could be downloaded and played at the listener’s convenience, anytime or anywhere.

Treatment with apremilast resulted in a greater reduction in the number of oral ulcers related to Behçet’s syndrome, compared with placebo, but is also associated with diarrhea, nausea and headache, according to data published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Among patients with Takayasu’s and giant cell arteritis, certain symptoms, such as carotidynia, are more closely associated with vascular inflammation based on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, or FDG-PET, while claudication and other symptoms are more linked to vascular damaged based on magnetic resonance angiography, according to data published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

ATLANTA — Approximately 47% of patients in clinical remission after receiving 1 year of weekly tocilizumab for giant cell arteritis maintained their treatment-free remission for an additional 2 years, according to a speaker at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting.

ATLANTA — Increased use of glucocorticoid-sparing agents is one of the key recommendations in a guideline document that covers seven vasculitis diseases, according to a speaker at ACR/ARP 2019.

ATLANTA — Gadolinium-enhanced MRI improved diagnostic accuracy in patients with polymyalgia rheumatica and helped predict disease recurrence, according to a presenter here.

ATLANTA — A panel at ACR/ARP 2019 offered an overview of the new guidelines for giant cell arteritis, Takayasu’s syndrome, and polyarteritis nodosa.