Upadacitinib significantly improved the signs and symptoms of nr-axSpA compared with placebo at Week 14 in this investigation. Prior to this, upadacitinib had been shown to be effective in patients with AS. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of upadacitinib in non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis.

Secukinumab improves the burden of heel enthesitis as assessed by patient and physician reported outcomes in patients with active SpA refractory to standard treatment. In coming to this conclusion, the ACHILLES trial aimed to demonstrate the efficacy of secukinumab on Achilles’ tendon enthesitis in SpA patients.

July 2022

Van der Heijde et al., carried out a study to show whether upadacitinib offers an effective treatment option for bDMARD-naïve and bDMARD-IR patients with active AS. Their results indicated that upadacitinib 15 mg significantly improved the signs and symptoms of active AS. The treatment was well tolerated for 14 weeks in bDMARD-IR patients, consistent with results observed in the upadacitinib AS bDMARD-naïve study.

Baseline disease activity, as measured by cDAPSA, predicts the achievement of treatment targets in DMARD-naïve patients post- apremilast treatment. To come to this conclusion Mease, et al.  analysed data from the PALACE 4 clinical trial which investigated apremilast in DMARD-naïve patients. 175 patients receiving 30mg apremilast from baseline with cDAPSA data available, were analysed.

This analysis found that patients with active PsA who receive treatment with guselkumab can achieve robust and sustained low disease activity or remission. In reaching this conclusion investigators sought to evaluate the efficacy of guselkumab for the treatment of active PsA through the use of composite indices.

June 2022

Navarro-Compán et al, determined the effectiveness of tofacitinib in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis in a Phase III, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Merola et al., reported the effect of interleukin (IL)-17A inhibition with secukinumab on cardiovascular (CV) risk parameters in patients with psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) over 1 year of treatment. This study evaluated data from 19 secukinumab related clinical trials in phase 3/4 in psoriasis, PsA, and axSpA.

Enthesitis is a hallmark feature of SpA, including PsA and axSpA, and is proposed as the primary lesion in spondyloarthropathies. This study aimed to investigate the imaging characteristics of heel enthesitis in SpA in a post hoc analysis using the HEMRIS in blinded and centrally read MRI data from the ACHILLES trial..

van der Horst-Bruinsma et al., carried out a post-hoc analysis to confirm that the clinical presentations and responses to ixekizumab therapy may differ in male and female patients.

May 2022

Eder, et al. sought to investigate the sex-based differences in treatment response between male and female PsA patients. They found that overall male patients had higher clinical response rates and greater improvements in the individual components of these measures.