Search results for "arthritis"

Heart failure and anti tumor necrosis factor-alpha in systemic chronic inflammatory diseases.

2013

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) antagonists have emerged as an effective therapy for patients with diseases as Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other chronic systemic inflammatory diseases. In the last years, there has been a growing interest in the role that inflammatory cytokines, which sustain the pathogenesis of these diseases, plays in regulating cardiac structure and function, particularly in the progression of chronic heart failure. In fact there is an increase of anti-TNF alpha levels in advanced heart failure but the treatment with anti-TNF alpha has been shown to worsen the prognosis of heart failure in randomized controlled trials. Patients with rheumatoid arthr…

Muscle Evaluation in Axial Spondyloarthritis—The Evidence for Sarcopenia

2019

Sarcopenia is a syndrome defined as a progressive and generalized skeletal muscle disorder associated with an increased likelihood of adverse outcomes such as falls, fractures, physical disability, and death. The actual definition of sarcopenia is based on a reduction in the values of three parameters: strength, muscle mass quantity or quality, and physical performance (the determinant of severity). Muscle wasting is a common feature in several chronic diseases, such as spondyloarthritis (SpA), and significantly increases patient morbidity and mortality. Although there has been huge progress in this field over recent years, the absence of a clear definition and clear diagnostic criteria of …

Twelve-Week Internet-Based Individualized Exercise Program in Adults With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

2020

Background Systemic lupus erythematosus is a systemic autoimmune disease, which is associated with high cardiovascular risk, a predisposition to metabolic disorders, muscle wasting, and fatigue. Exercise therapy has become an important part of the long-term treatment of comorbidities in systemic lupus erythematosus. Exercise can lead to various benefits in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus such as increased aerobic capacity and exercise tolerance, resulting in an increased quality of life, decreased depression, and decreased fatigue. At the moment, no evidence-based treatment guidelines that recommend exercise for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus exist. Also, the efficac…

Subgrouping and targeted exercise programmes for knee and hip osteoarthritis (STEER OA) individual participant data meta-analysis. Progress update an…

2019

Anti-Tumour Necrosis Factor-?? Therapy for Rheumatoid and Other Inflammatory Arthropathies

2006

Anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha represents a major advance in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis. It is usually well tolerated, but a potential increase in the incidence of some infections in patients taking anti-TNFalpha agents has been reported. Compared with younger people, elderly patients have more co-morbidities and are likely to be taking more medications. Moreover, the aging process induces an increase in the rate of infections. Nevertheless, in recent studies analysing the databases of etanercept trials, the normalised incidence of adverse events, serious adverse events, medically important infections and deaths was no…

Efficacy of conservative treatments for hand osteoarthritis

2020

Background: Hand osteoarthritis (OA) is common, but the efficacy/safety of treatment interventions aimed to improve health outcomes in this population are not well understood. Therefore, the aim of this study was to map and grade the effect of interventions for health outcomes in hand OA. Methods: Umbrella review of systematic reviews with meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using placebo/no intervention as control group. For outcomes with a p-value <0.05, the certainty of the evidence was evaluated using the grading of recommendations assessment, development and evaluation (GRADE) assessment. Results: From 189 abstracts, 9 meta-analyses (24 outcomes) were included, with…

Cardiovascular Imaging Techniques in Systemic Rheumatic Diseases

2018

The risk of cardiovascular (CV) events and mortality is significantly higher in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases than in the general population. Although CV involvement in such patients is highly heterogeneous and may affect various structures of the heart, it can now be diagnosed earlier and promptly treated. Various types of assessments are employed for the evaluation of CV risk such as transthoracic or transesophageal echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and computed tomography (CT) to investigate valve abnormalities, pericardial disease, and ventricular wall motion defects. The diameter of coronary arteries can be assessed using invasive quantitative coronarograp…

Reducing the initial number of rituximab maintenance-therapy infusions for ANCA-associated vasculitides: randomized-trial post-hoc analysis

2020

AbstractObjectiveThe randomized, controlled MAINRITSAN2 trial was designed to compare the capacity of an individually tailored therapy [randomization day 0 (D0)], with reinfusion only when CD19+ lymphocytes or ANCA had reappeared, or if the latter’s titre rose markedly, with that of five fixed-schedule 500-mg rituximab infusions [D0 + D14, then months (M) 6, 12 and 18] to maintain ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) remissions. Relapse rates did not differ at M28. This ancillary study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of omitting the D14 rituximab infusion on AAV relapse rates at M12.MethodsMAINRITSAN2 trial data were subjected to post-hoc analyses of M3, M6, M9 and M12 relapse-free surviv…

SAT0571 OPTICAL SPECTRAL TRANSMISSION TO ASSESS THERAPY RESPONSE IN PATIENTS WITH ARTHRITIS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY WITH CLINICAL, LABORATORY AND ULTRAS…

2020

Background:Valid assessment of disease activity leads to outcome improvement in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (1). Optical spectral transmission (OST) is a modern diagnostic tool able to assess the blood-specific absorption of light transmitted through a tissue, promising quantification of inflammation in the finger and wrist joints of RA patients (commercial device: HandScan - Hemics, The Netherlands) (2).Objectives:To our knowledge, there are no data regarding the diagnostic value of OST in the evaluation of inflammatory activity changes during arthitis follow up.Thus, aims of this study were to examine the ability of OST to detect response to anti-inflammatory therapy in patien…

AB1232 RHEUMA-VOR: A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT NETWORK STUDY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF RHEUMATOLOGICAL HEALTH CARE THROUGH COORDINATED COOPERATION

2019

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis arthritis (PsA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) are the most common chronic autoimmune rheumatic diseases. For all 3, the so-called “window of opportunity” [1-3] has been identified as the decisive factor affecting the outcome. Objectives The aim of the prospective study is to improve early diagnosis of RA, PsA and SpA and thus positively impact the quality of care for patients with the help of coordinating centers. The primary endpoint is the number of cases with an actual indication for immediate referral to a specialist in proportion to all reported cases. Methods The project establishes a network of the University Medical Center Mainz, the Med…