Systemic Lupus Erythematosus News

• Renal, CV Damage May Develop in Mild SLE Despite Treatment An increase in disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus is associated with significant increases in the risk of renal and cardiovascular damage.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• Why Are a Tiny Number of Vaccinated People Being Hospitalized? Experts say we should investigate "breakthrough infections" to look out for variants and understand who's vulnerable. In many cases, that's not happening.
  ProPublica, April 15, 2021
• COVID-19 Vaccination in RMD Patients: Safety Data 'Reassuring' Two reports support the safety and immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) and represent the first available data on such patients.
  Medscape Medical News, March 30, 2021
• Heightened Brain Activity With Stress Tied to Takotsubo Syndrome A higher ratio of amygdalar to regulatory brain activity may lead to heightened response to stressors, activation of the sympathetic and immune systems, and risk for so-called 'broken heart syndrome.'
  Medscape Medical News, March 29, 2021
• COVID-19's Impact on Lupus Inpatients Examined in Study 'Recently, anti-interferon antibodies have been implicated in severe SARS-CoV-2 infection while it has been known for decades that patients with SLE may produce such autoantibodies.'
  Medscape Medical News, March 25, 2021
• Friendly Fire: How Autoantibodies Could Drive Severe COVID People who were hospitalized with severe COVID-19 had plenty of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but they also had a diverse set of antibodies against their own body's tissues and molecules.
  Knowable Magazine, March 24, 2021
• Drop in Scleritis Cases in UK Likely Due to Better Management of Immune Disease The incidence of scleritis has fallen by about a third in the United Kingdom over roughly the past two decades, likely due to improvements in the management of immune-related diseases, researchers report.
  Reuters Health Information, March 19, 2021
• Yes or No: The Future of Rheumatology Is Sub-Subspecialization It makes little sense for some rheumatologists to declare they're only going to see patients with psoriatic arthritis, or gout, or lupus.
  Medscape Medical News, March 16, 2021
• Nearly 20% of Lupus Patients Have Severe Infection in First Decade After Diagnosis Infections remain a leading cause of morbidity and early mortality in patients with SLE, writes Kai Zhao, MSc, of Arthritis Research Canada, Richmond, and colleagues.
  Medscape Medical News, March 12, 2021
• Maternal Chronic Conditions Predict Cerebral Palsy in Offspring Several maternal chronic conditions increase the risk of giving birth to a child with cerebral palsy, based on data from more than 1.3 million Norwegian children.
  Medscape Medical News, March 05, 2021
• RA Experts Highlight Key Developments Over the Past Year A massive Swedish cohort study suggesting that biologic agents reduce the known excess risk of lymphoma in patients with rheumatoid arthritis was hailed as one of the high points of the last year.
  Medscape Medical News, March 05, 2021
• New Tool to Aid Accurate Lupus Diagnosis Clinicians in Greece have developed and validated a simple and accurate tool to aid diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) based on standard clinical and serological features.
  Reuters Health Information, February 26, 2021
• Outcomes Have Improved for PAH in Connective Tissue Disease There is growing evidence that treatments for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension can also benefit those with connective tissue diseases.
  Medscape Medical News, February 19, 2021
• Checkpoint Inhibitor Safety in Preexisting Autoimmune Diseases 'To our knowledge, this is the first study to bridge this knowledge gap by presenting 'real-world' data on the safety and efficacy of ICI on a national scale,' wrote Monique K. van der Kooij, MD.
  Medscape Medical News, February 17, 2021
• Rituximab Likely Well-Tolerated in Pediatric Patients, but Infections Are Common Rituximab seemed to be well tolerated in children and adolescents in a retrospective study, but infections were common, and B-cell count recovery could take more than a year, researchers say.
  Reuters Health Information, February 11, 2021
• COVID-19 Virus May Prompt Body to Attack Itself An international team of researchers studying COVID-19 has made a startling and pivotal discovery: The virus appears to cause the body to make weapons to attack its own tissues.
  WebMD Health News, February 02, 2021
• Meta-Analysis Finds Much Less Lupus Than Expected The prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus appears to be much lower than previously believed and may pose 'a potential risk to research funding for the disease.'
  Medscape Medical News, February 02, 2021
• Alert FDA Approves Voclosporin for Lupus Nephritis Lupkynis is a calcineurin-inhibitor immunosuppressant, and is the first oral medication to show effectiveness in lupus nephritis, according to the company.
  FDA Approvals, January 27, 2021
• Secondary Sjogren's Syndrome, Scleritis Linked to Corneal Complications Patients with secondary Sjogren's syndrome (SS) are at increased risk of corneal complications compared to those with primary SS, and eyes with scleritis are at especially high risk, according to new findings.
  Reuters Health Information, January 14, 2021
• High HCQ Blood Level May Lower Thrombosis Risk in Lupus Studies suggest that it may protect against thrombosis, but the optimal dosing for this purpose remains unknown, wrote Michelle Petri, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and colleagues.
  Medscape Medical News, January 07, 2021