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| Dall'Era M, et al. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015;67(5):1305–1313. |
| There is a need to determine which response measures in lupus nephritis trials are most predictive of good long-term renal function. Investigators in this study used data from the Euro-Lupus Nephritis trial to evaluate the performance of proteinuria, serum creatinine (Cr), and urinary red blood cells (RBCs) as predictors of good long-term renal outcome. This study results show that the level of proteinuria at 12 months is the individual best predictor of long-term renal outcome in patients with lupus nephritis. Inclusion of urinary RBCs as part of a composite outcome measure actually undermined the predictive value… |
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| Bernstein EJ, et al. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015;67(5):1314–1322. |
| The aim of this study was to determine whether adults with systemic sclerosis (SSc) have higher 1-year mortality rates after lung transplantation compared with those with interstitial lung disease (ILD) or pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) not due to SSc. The authors found that patients with SSc have an increased risk of death 1 year following lung transplantation compared with those with a diagnosis of ILD, but this risk is similar to that of PAH… |
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| Cervera R, et al. Ann Rheum Dis 2015;74(6):1011–1018. |
| During the last three decades, several studies on patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) have been published, most of them being small or short-term follow-up cohorts. This Euro-Phospolipid project was created to assess the 10-year outcomes of 1000 patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). In this cohort, 53.1% of patients had primary APS, 36.2% had APS associated with systemic lupus erythematosus, and 10.7% had APS associated with other diseases. Thrombotic events appeared in 166 (16.6%) patients during the first 5-year period and in 115 (14.4%) patients during the second 5-year period. The most common events were strokes, transient ischemic attacks, deep vein thromboses, and pulmonary embolism… |
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| Jordan S, et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2015;74:1188–1194. |
| This is the first multicenter case–control study with rituximab (RTX) in systemic sclerosis (SSc). In this study, treatment with RTX improved skin fibrosis and stabilized lung function parameters in patients with SSc-associated lung fibrosis. Most promising thing was that effects of RTX improved both skin and lung fibrosis. These effects on two different organ manifestations of fibrosis underline the potential of RTX as an antifibrotic agent in SSc. Highlight of this study was the inclusion of a large control group. Inclusion of a matched control group is of particular importance in studies on skin fibrosis in SSc, as spontaneous improvements of the mRSS over time occur frequently. Thus, previous reported effects of RTX in uncontrolled studies might have been due to the natural course of the disease rather than due to effects of RTX effects. Moreover, it is the largest study reported so far on the use of RTX in SSc… |
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