In this study risankizumab treatment resulted in greater improvements in fatigue and pain than placebo. Prior to this finding the study aimed to evaluate the impact of risankizumab on HRQoL and other PROs among patients with active PsA and inadequate response or intolerance to csDMARD-IR in the KEEPsAKE 1 trial.

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.

Herpes zoster (HZ) risk is significantly increased in seropositive RA patients with a history of HZ after the initiation of bDMARDs or tsDMARD. It is now well known that the incidence and recurrence of HZ are quite common in patients with RA in real-world clinical settings, yet there is limited evidence regarding bDMARD-dependent HZ risk among patients with a history of HZ prior to bDMARD use.

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.

Glintborg B et al, highlight in their recent research from the Nordic countries, that there is a low frequency of hospitalised infections during treatment with secukinumab or TNFi in patients with SpA and PsA. In clinical practice, secukinumab was found to double absolute risk of 1st year hospitalised infection compared with adalimumab, with the other TNFi treatments falling in between.

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.

Here bimekizumab was associated with long-term reductions in disease activity and disease impact on patients with PsA. This investigation set out to evaluate the long-term effects of bimekizumab treatment on the key symptoms of PsA and the resulting impact on patient function and HRQoL.

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.

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..