Pain intensity strongly correlates with disease activity measured by DAS28-ESR in people with rheumatoid arthritis, with the association mostly explained by the patient global assessment element of the composite score, study data show.

Among the individual disease groups, the ORs for four or more hospitalizations associated with the highest SVI were a significant 2.06, 1.94, and 1.84 among people with osteoarthritis, crystalline arthritis, and inflammatory arthritis, respectively, with a similar but nonsignificant trend among those with SLE or connective tissue disease.

Men with systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease may experience worse outcomes than women, which could be explained by sex differences in biomarker profiles, suggests a post-hoc analysis of the SLS I and SLS II trials.

The IL-6 receptor inhibitor tocilizumab may significantly reduce disease activity and the amount of prednisone needed in people with glucocorticoid-dependent active polymyalgia rheumatica, suggest results from a phase 3 trial published in JAMA .

“Based on these findings, for patients with PsA with significant joint disease, but milder skin disease, certainly a JAK inhibitor could be the drug of choice,” say the researchers.

A large study published in The Lancet has found that people with autoimmune diseases have an approximately 1.4–3.6-fold increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease relative to the general population.

A risk score that incorporates sex, age at rheumatoid arthritis  onset, disease activity, and the MUC5B rs35705950 genetic variant may be useful for the prediction of subclinical RA-associated interstitial lung disease, research suggests.

Among patients assessed by PsA-specific metrics across the studies, 14–100% achieved at least minimal disease activity (MDA) or low disease activity (LDA), while 12–43% achieved very low disease activity (VLDA) or remission.

There were no differences in the disease activity, function, or impact of the disease.

Individuals with juvenile idiopathic arthritis have a higher-than-average incidence of celiac disease that may be associated with a family history of autoimmunity and a more severe disease course, Italian researchers report.

Adding infliximab to standard therapy with high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin plus high-dose aspirin may decrease fever duration and prevent coronary artery lesions in children with Kawasaki disease, study findings indicate.

Conclusions Our study demonstrates that currently existing cutaneous lesions in patients themselves are correlated with disease activity and severity of axial joint damage, whereas family history does not have an evident impact on the disease activity of PsA.

medwireNews : The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the Vasculitis Foundation have issued evidence-based recommendations and expert guidance on managing Kawasaki disease (KD).

Before COVID-19, clinical trials supported the efficacy and safety of switching from IV to SC infliximab for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and SC infliximab may have been selected on the basis of patient and HCP preferences for SC agents.

Individuals with certain immune-mediated inflammatory diseases are at increased risk for premature coronary artery disease, show population-based study data from Taiwan.

Methods TNFi-treated outpatients with IA were recruited and a broad range of disease activity measures were assessed. nADAb were assessed using a reporter gene assay.

The researchers say that disease activity remained stable in 94.4% of participants following the first vaccine dose and in 98.8% following the second dose.

Patient-reported symptoms without objective signs that indicate a flare of disease activity after the switch to ADAbio are probably explained by nocebo effects.

In a multivariable analysis, the 77 people with severe or high SLE disease activity and the 229 with moderate disease activity were significantly more likely to fall into a greater COVID-19 severity category than the 587 in remission, with odds ratios (ORs) of 3.94 and 1.61, respectively.