Vasculitis and Giant Cell Arteritis News

CLEVELAND — Conventional therapy still has a role in the treatment of granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis; however, there are many factors that need to be examined for each patient, according to Carol A. Langford, MD, MHS, director for Vasculitis Care and Research in the Department of Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases at the Cleveland Clinic, said in her presentation at the Primary Vasculitides Pre-symposium of the Biologic Therapies VII Summit.

CLEVELAND — Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, of the Cleveland Clinic and Chief Medical Editor of Healio Rheumatology, provided a diagnostic update for patients with central nervous system vasculitis at the Primary Vasculitides Pre-symposium of the Biologic Therapies VII Summit.

CLEVELAND — At the Biologics Therapies VII Summit, Michael E. Wechsler, MD, MMSc, professor of medicine and director of the Asthma Institute at National Jewish Health in Denver, spoke about eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis and the role of biologics, which include mepolizumab and reslizumab.

CLEVELAND — At the Biologics Therapies VII Summit, Peter A. Merkel, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and epidemiology and chief of rheumatology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke about biologics for the treatment of giant cell arthritis, which include abatacept and tocilizumab.

CLEVELAND — At the Biologics Therapies VII Summit, Rula Hajj-Ali, MD, PhD, associate director of the Vasculitis Center at the Cleveland Clinic, spoke about the challenges of patients with eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis.

CLEVELAND — Ulrich Specks, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, described unmet needs in the management of granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis at the Primary Vasculitides Pre-symposium of the Biologic Therapies VII Summit.

CLEVELAND — At Biologic Therapies VII Summit, W.H. Wilson Tang, MD, in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Heart and Vascular Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, spoke about patients with eosinophilic granulomatosis polyangiitis (EGPA) and their cardiac manifestations.

CLEVELAND — Kenneth J. Warrington, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, reviewed the current treatment for giant cell arteritis, the chronicity of the disease, treatment-related morbidity and vascular complications at the Primary Vasculitides Pre-symposium of the Biologic Therapies VII Summit.

The most recent American College of Rheumatology-endorsed criteria for the classification of vasculitis were published in 1990. At the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting last year, a novel set of criteria were rolled out in a comprehensive 90-minute session, but the document is under review and will not be presented until the 2017 annual meeting.

The Cover Story of this issue of Healio Rheumatology is dedicated to vasculitis. I have been looking forward to writing this Editorial for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that I have spent a large part of my career seeing patients with various forms of vasculitis and have had a “bird’s eye view” of the maturation of the field from an area of complex curiosity to highly productive basic, translational and clinical research. The discussions with many leading figures in the field on this issue testify to this deserved status. Not long ago, guidance on the diagnosis and management of patients with these uncommon disorders came from a dedicated few who made it their business to bring these diseases into the light. Today, however, we are guided by increasingly robust evidence and it is a challenge for general rheumatologists to keep up with the pace of discovery.