Vasculitis and Giant Cell Arteritis News

Although childhood-onset Takayasu arteritis has a higher frequency of aortic and renal involvement compared with the adult-onset form of the disease, relapse and disease burden remain high among patients in both groups, according to findings published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Just 32.1% of reproductive-age women with rheumatic diseases use any kind of prescription contraception, while at the same time more than 70% use at least one fetotoxic medication, according to findings published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Johns Hopkins Hospital has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals Survey as the top-ranked hospital in the country for rheumatology for the 2018 to 2019 year.

Healio Rheumatology is proud to announce the launch of Rheuminations, a podcast series hosted by Adam Brown, MD, focusing on medical mysteries and other ripping yarns of the immune system gone awry.

Although researchers found severe infections in one-quarter of patients with antineutrophil cytoplasm antibody-associated vasculitis who had been treated with rituximab, prophylaxis with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole was successful in reducing the risk for infection, according to findings published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Children who have granulomatosis with polyangiitis are hospitalized more frequently, and are more vulnerable to hematologic complications, than nonelderly adults with the same condition, according to findings published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

AMSTERDAM — Testing for antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies, or ANCA, should be performed early in patients with suspected ANCA-associated vasculitis, and treatment should never be delayed, according to a speaker at the EULAR Annual Congress.

The reemergence of myeloperoxidase-antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies — or MPO-ANCA — can serve as a biomarker to predict relapse in patients who achieved remission in MPO-ANCA–positive ANCA-associated vasculitis, according to findings published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Significantly more patients with IgG4-related disease who were treated with glucocorticoid alone failed remission induction compared with those who received combination therapy of glucocorticoid and immunosuppressive agents, according to findings published in Arthritis Research and Therapy.

DESTIN, Fla. — Although the incidence of rheumatologic adverse effects associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors is expected to grow with their increased use, these effects remain poorly studied in random clinical trials, according to findings presented at the 2018 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.