Vasculitis and Giant Cell Arteritis News

DESTIN, Fla. —An over-reliance on elevations in serum immunoglobin G4 concentrations, or tissue immunoglobin G4-positive plasma cell numbers, remain significant “pitfalls” in the diagnosis of immunoglobin G4-related disease, according to findings presented at the 2018 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

DESTIN, Fla. — In patients with giant cell arteritis, a regimen of tocilizumab given 162 mg weekly plus a 26-week prednisone taper demonstrated significant improvements in health-related quality of life and fatigue compared with patients treated with 26-week or 52-week prednisone taper alone, according to findings presented at the 2018 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

DESTIN, Fla. — Practical, individualized care for patients with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis should use the presence of granulomatosis with polyangiitis, rather than microscopic polyangiitis, as well as other basic disease characteristics as a predictor for relapse, according to findings presented at the 2018 Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

DESTIN, Fla. — Emerging drugs for giant cell arteritis, including abatacept and the interleukin-6 blocker tocilizumab, although promising, require more research to determine more precisely their place in treatment, according to Christian Pagnoux, MD, MSc, of Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto.

DESTIN, Fla. — Rheumatoid arthritis demonstrated a statistically significant increase in mortality between 2005 and 2015, bucking a downward trend for mortality in most other rheumatologic diseases, according to findings from a national study presented at the North American Young Rheumatology Investigator Forum.

The nature of the relationship that patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases have with their rheumatologist can greatly affect perceptions of — and experiences with — their medications, according to findings published in BMC Rheumatology.

EULAR has released an update to its 2008 recommendations for the management of Behçet’s syndrome, which adds new recommendations on the surgical management of arterial aneurysms.

The FDA has rejected approval of Sandoz’s biologics license application for GP2013, a proposed rituximab biosimilar, issuing Complete Response Letters for the product.

BOSTON — Avacopan, an oral C5aR inhibitor currently being studied as an investigational treatment for granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis, may be the first drug developed specifically to treat vasculitis, according to Paul Monach, MD, PhD, chief of the rheumatology section for the VA Boston Healthcare System.

BOSTON — The potential rheumatic side effects of checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with cancer can include arthralgia, arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, giant cell arteritis, myositis, sicca syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus, and can be chronic in approximately 50% of patients, according to findings presented here.