Deodhar et al. investigated the impact on efficacy and safety of escalating secukinumab dose from 150mg to 300mg Q4W in AS patients who did not achieve inactive disease during an initial 16-week period of 150mg secukinumab. At Week 52, clinical safety response rates were similar across groups continuing with 150mg or escalating to 300mg secukinumab.

McInnes et al. reported that bimekizumab demonstrated sustained efficacy and safety over 52 weeks in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), regardless of concomitant methotrexate (MTX) use. Both bimekizumab groups (with and without MTX) showed similar improvements in achieving ACR50 and PASI100 responses.

August 2024

Patients classified as having a high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR-High) who received filgotinib 200mg + MTX/csDMARDs exhibited consistently better responses after 12 weeks across clinical trials, clinical endpoints, and PROs, compared with NLR-Low patients. Taylor et al. analysed data from the 3 FINCH trials to investigate the potential association of baseline NLR with improved clinical response to filgotinib in MTX-naïve or MTX-experienced RA populations.

July 2024

Worth, et al. found that namilumab did not show efficacy compared with placebo in patients with active axSpA, but the treatment was generally well tolerated. An unusually high proportion of ASAS20 responders at Week 12 were observed in the placebo group, which had a small sample size compared to the namilumab arm.

Bimekizumab (BKZ) treatment led to early improvements in physical function, sleep, work productivity, and overall health-related quality of life at Week 16 in patients across the full axSpA disease spectrum, which were sustained through Week 52. Dubreuil et al. investigated treatment impact over one year using BASFI, MOS-Sleep-R, SF-36 PCS/MCS, WPAI:axSpA, and ASQoL scores in patients with both non-radiographic and radiographic axSpA.

Ritchlin et al. conducted a post hoc analysis of the DISCOVER-2 trial, evaluating the efficacy of guselkumab in biologic-naïve patients with PsA. Guselkumab provided durable disease control across key PsA domains and PROs over 2 years, regardless of baseline characteristics. A significant proportion of patients achieved stringent endpoints such as ACR50/70, complete skin clearance, and resolution of dactylitis/enthesitis.

Genetic variants in TNFα, NLRP3, MYD88, and FcRγ genes were associated with a response to TNFi, when assessing several inflammatory diseases together. Al-Sofi et al. conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genetic markers and their response to biologics in psoriasis, PsA, RA, IBD, and across all chronic inflammatory diseases together.

June 2024

The 1-year results of the SELECT-AXIS 2 study showed significant improvements in ASAS40 achievement in patients with nr-axSpA that were treated with upadacitinib 15mg QD versus placebo. Improvements in ASDAS endpoints, back pain, BASFI, and hsCRP from baseline were also observed.

Long-term clinical outcomes of certolizumab pegol treatment in non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis stratified by baseline MRI and CRP status

RMD Open 2024;10:e003884 doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2023-003884 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38724259/

The safety follow-up extension of the C-axSpAnd trial showed that long-term clinical outcomes from certolizumab pegol treatment achieved after 1 year were generally sustained at 3 years across MRI+/CRP+, MRI−/CRP+ and MRI+/CRP− subgroups.

A disease-associated gene desert directs macrophage inflammation through ETS2

Nature 2024 doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07501-1 Epub ahead of print

Stankey, et al. used functional genomics to show that the ETS2 gene is a central regulator of human inflammatory macrophages. They also found that ETS2 was disrupted by JAK inhibitors and MEK inhibitors, with multiple MEK inhibitors being shown to downregulate ETS2-target genes.

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