Blocking the IL-6R is a major therapeutic advance for many diseases in adults and children. Updated consensus statement provides guidance to rheumatologists and other experts, as well as patients and administrators, on managing patients with the use of drugs blocking the IL-6 pathway.

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This Phase 3 study by Strober, et al. reports deucravacitinib superiority to placebo and apremilast in patients with PsO. The authors found that deucravacitinib had significantly higher rates of PASI 75 and sPGA achievement than placebo and deucravacitinib.

August 2022

In the latest study by Curtis, et al. guselkumab treatment regimens improved general HRQoL as measured by the EQ-5D-5L Index and EQ-VAS. In reaching this conclusion investigators aimed to determine the minimal important difference for both instruments and to understand the associations between patient-reported EQ-5D-5L Index and EQ-VAS scores as well as key PsA clinical features.

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.

June 2022

Retrospective, longitudinal, population-based study shows that despite an overall higher incidence of hospitalised infection (HI) in both elderly and older elderly patients compared to young patients, the risks of HI in patients exposed to targeted therapy versus MTX is not significantly increased.

Observational study of data, from large international collective of registers, finds similar overall drug retention rates between RA treatment groups.

In this study Mease, et al. aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of deucravacitinib in patients with active PsA. Treatment with the selective TYK2i deucravacitinib was well tolerated and resulted in greater improvements than placebo in ACR-20 as well as Multiplicity-controlled secondary endpoints and other exploratory efficacy measures in 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.

This analysis aimed to report the safety profile of ixekizumab for the PsA SPIRIT programme. The overall safety profile and tolerability of ixekizumab are consistent with the previously known safety profile in patients with PsA.