Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases

Opioid use in patients with autoimmune rheumatic disease has decreased 15% annually since 2014, while use of non-opioid options for pain management has either increased or stabilized, according to data published in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Switching between biosimilars and reference products did not increase the risk for death or serious adverse events, according to a meta-analysis conducted by FDA investigators.

Hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 in patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases declined significantly during the most recent 2 years of the pandemic, partly thanks to vaccination among vulnerable populations, according to data.

SAN DIEGO — Pregnant patients with concomitant systemic lupus erythematosus and antiphospholipid syndrome have an 18-fold increased risk for cardiovascular events vs. healthy pregnant controls, said a speaker at ACR Convergence 2023.

After a third COVID-19 vaccine dose, patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases often fail to mount an effective response useful in preventing omicron breakthrough infection, according to data published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

A fourth dose of a heterologous mRNA COVID-19 vaccine produced a “remarkable” humoral response in patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases who had a poor response to a third homologous dose, according to data published in Rheumatology.

At this point in the pandemic, I am once again unsure of what the future will look like, save for two predictions. One (as I have recently been tweeting) is that COVID-19, in some form, will remain an endemic infection and prevalent risk for the immunocompromised.

DMARD interruptions in patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases increased more than 80% between December 2020 and May 2021, leading to higher rates of self-reported flares, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Patients with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases have a 54% increased risk for COVID-19 infection, and more than twice the risk for COVID-19 death, versus the general population, according to data published in Rheumatology.