Post hoc analysis from ORAL Surveillance observes higher major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) risk with tofacitinib vs TNFi in patients with RA and history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).

August 2022

Bimekizumab is associated with sustained, long-term efficacy in r-axSpA patinets across three years of treatment. In coming to this conclusion, investigators sought to assess the long-term safety, tolerability, and efficacy of bimekizumab in active r-axSpA.

In this investigation bimekizumab was associated with a sustained ACR50 improvement. This was highlighted following the attempt to describe the long-term safety, tolerability, and efficacy of up to three years of bimekizumab treatment in PsA patients

July 2022

This study from Ruyssen-Witrand et al, highlights that the probability of being in drug free remission at 5-year in patients with recent onset of axSpA is low. The study was performed to investigate the possible association between demographic, clinical, biological and imaging characteristics and drug-free remission at 5 years.

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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.

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.

May 2022

Pina Vegas and her colleagues sought to assess the relative risk of MACEs in patients with PsA initiating bDMARDs or apremilast. They found that overall, the data produced overall a positive picture regarding the incidence of MACE in treatment.

Two Phase 3 Trials of Baricitinib for Alopecia Areata

N Engl J Med. 2022. Epub ahead of print doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2110343

Phase 3 trials in patients with severe alopecia areata show that baricitinib is superior to placebo with respect to hair regrowth at 36 weeks.
Alopecia areata is characterised by nonscarring hair loss that can affect any hair-bearing site. Although mild cases of this emotionally- and psychosocially-distressing autoimmune disease may resolve within 12 months, more severe forms of the disease are unlikely to remit without treatment.

This was an exploratory post hoc analysis of pooled data, from over 2000 patients in three Phase 3 studies of tofacitinib, which demonstrates an association between tofacitinib treatment and significantly greater improvements in fatigue, sleep, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), compared with placebo.