ORGENTEC Autoimmunity Blog

Covering Autoimmune Diseases

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Is the Incidence of this Autoimmune Disease Rising?

Comments

Is the Incidence of Rheumatoid Arthritis Rising?

Is rheumatoid arthritis (RA) actually on the rise? Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota say “yes”, and they presented data from a study, published in the June issue of the Arthritis & Rheumatism magazine – even though the authors themselves can only speculate about the reasons why.

Rheumatoid arthritis is on the rise, they found – is increased use of some lower dose birth control pills a factor?

Rheumatoid arthritis is on the rise, they found – is increased use of some lower dose birth control pills a factor?

In that recently published Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinical Study Elena Myasoedova, Cynthia S. Crowson, Hilal Maradit Kremers, Terry M. Therneau, and Sherine E. Gabriel from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, expanded a previous research from 1955 to 1994, looking at the years 1995 to 2007. To augment the pre-existing study they now focused on the medical records of more than 1,700 residents of Olmstedt County, Minnesota, aged 18 years or older, who had received at least one diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Yes, RA is on the rise! 

What did they find out? – From 1955 to 1994, the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis had continually been on the decline. That apparently changed beginning in the mid-1990s. When the researchers analyzed patient data from early 1995 to the start of 2005, they found that both the incidence and the prevalence of the condition were rising. (more…)

DMARDs: Practical Recommendations for Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment

1 Comment

Recommendations on the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) with DMARDs

A cure for rheumatoid arthritis is not yet possible, that’s fact. However, remission is within one’s reach today. 

RA treatment has undergone dramatic changes the last ten years.

Concerning this, an EULAR task force (EULAR is The European League Against Rheumatism) has recently developed and released new RA guidelines for the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), based on an systematic literature review.

In these brand new RA recommendations the dramatic developments in therapeutic options in recent years have been recognized as well as the difficulties this has created in defining simple treatment algorithms. The EULAR guidelines can be downloaded free from the EULAR journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases free of charge.  (more…)

Osteoimmunology: Bones and the Immune System – How they Communicate With Each Other

4 Comments

How Bones and the Immune System Do Communicate

From left to right: a red blood cell, a platelet, a T-lymphocyte.

The term osteoimmunology was first used about 10 years ago by Joseph R. Arron and Yongwon Choi in their article Osteoimmunology: Bone Versus Immune System in Nature. Since then, a number of articles have appeared in the scientific literature with this term in their title. A Wikipedia article on the subject has also been available since July 2007, though it is only in English and is not (yet) very comprehensive.   

There have also been occasional conferences that explicitly included osteoimmunology, for example the 3rd International Conference on Osteoimmunology: Interactions of Immune and Skeletal Systems coming up end of this month in Greece (20-25 June, 2010). In addition, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has initiated a new area of concentration called Immunobone, in order to promote this area of research and to facilitate networking between the various research groups and numerous different studies.  (more…)

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA): Smoking and Rheumatism

3 Comments

There is a Connection between Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Smoking – what are the Reasons?

Smoking might be a trigger for rheumatoid arthritis.

That smoking is unhealthy really isn’t a secret any more. However, it may be less well known that smoking is especially damaging to patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or people with a genetic predisposition towards this autoimmune disease.

Until a few years ago, a coherent explanation of how smoking triggers the break in immunotolerance and why tobacco smoke promotes the onset of autoimmune disease was still missing. A group of Swedish researchers has found one of the missing links in the pathogenic chain between tobacco smoke and rheumatoid arthritis (Makrygiannakis et al., 2008). The scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm showed that cigarette smoke is directly involved in the development of rheumatoid arthritis. (more…)

10 Clinical Facts about Rheumatoid Arthritis

1 Comment

10 Facts about Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Clinical Understanding of the Disease

A few days ago I took notice of a review more than worth reading, published in Arthritis Research & Therapy. The article titled Development in the clinical understanding of rheumatoid arthritis; it outlined the current clinical understanding of RA, and it presents the “Top 10 Clinical Facts about Rheumatoid Arthritis”. 

Paradigm change in the field of rheumatology: remission becomes obvious in innovative agents and novel treatment strategies.

Even though the article isn’t red-hot I’m positive that the “10 clinical facts on RA” by Josef S. Smolen and Daniel Alehata will be a great help in your daily work. – By the way: The article is available online free of charge and can be downloaded from the journal’s website. So you will be able to pore over the original text. 

The review is part of a special collection of articles about The Scientific Basis of Rheumatology: A Decade of Progress. That review series was published in Arthritis Research & Therapy at the occasion of the journal’s 10th anniversary last year (LinkOut to the series). – I’d strongly recommend this web site to anyone who is into rheumatology!  (more…)

Blood Tests for the Diagnosis of Lupus

12 Comments

Blood Tests for the Diagnosis of Lupus

Welcome to our Autoimmunity Blog! The subject of this post is blood tests for the diagnosis of lupus.  

Lupus facial rash in a typical wolf-like distribution.

Lupus facial rash in a typical wolf-like distribution.

The emphasis of this article is on the detection of autoantibodies relevant to the diagnosis of SLE. Specifically, this includes detection of ANA (antinuclear antibodies) by immunofluorescence and individual tests for various ANA, including anti-dsDNA, anti-Sm, anti-U1RNP (also anti-U1-RNP or anti-RNP), and anti-histone, as well as anti-SS-A/Ro and anti-SS-B/La.  

Tests for ANA are also highly useful in differential diagnostics, especially when diseases with symptoms resembling SLE must be distinguished from lupus itself, for example fibromyalgia, infections like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, or certain malignant tumours, particularly lymphoma and leukaemia.  (more…)

Research Update: Genetics of Rheumatoid Arthritis Susceptibility

4 Comments

Genetics of Rheumatoid Arthritis Susceptibility

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex autoimmune disease that is influenced by genetic and environmental factors, e.g. smoking. A group of Spanish investigators around Alejandro Balsa has recently published a study about the influence of HLA DRB1 genes on the development of RA and the production of disease-specific autoantibodies (open access, free article). 

They observed a dose-dependent association between SE-alleles and ACPA-titres in a Spanish cohort of RA patients. (more…)

Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA): Genes and Environment

Comments

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA): How do genes contribute to onset of this autoimmune disease? What about the environment?

Both the genetic groundwork of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and the influence of the environment on onset of the disease have thus far seen little research. One of the reasons for this is surely that JIA is a rare disease: only one in a thousand children suffer from juvenile idiopathic arthritis. With such a small number of patients, it is naturally difficult to carry out meaningful studies.

Insights and hypotheses about the epidemiology and pathomechanism of other autoimmune diseases have only in recent years begun to be carried over to JIA and confirmed for this autoimmune disorder. (more…)

Research Update: Hashimoto Thyroiditis, APS and Lupus

Comments

Lupus and APS – an indicator of increased risk of autoimmune thyroid disease?

It has been known for some time that Hashimoto thyroiditis, also known as autoimmune thyroid disease, can occur together with other autoimmune diseases. For the first time, a study has scientifically established the relationship between Hashimoto thyroiditis and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS).

Today I have taken a more thorough look at this study for you. Although the study isn’t hot off the press, I find the results to be so interesting that I would like to pass them along to you. (more…)

Research Update about ACPAs

Comments

Are RA-specific ACPAs formed directly within inflamed joints?

Antibodies against mutated citrullinated vimentin (anti-MCV) and cyclic citrullinated peptides (anti-CCP) in the serum of RA patients act as highly specific indicators of rheumatoid arthritis. In addition, these antibodies indicate whether the disease is progressing aggressively. In contrast to the CCP antibodies, the anti-MCV antibodies seem to have pathogenic significance.

Earlier studies showed that the anti-CCP titre is higher in the synovial fluid of RA patients than in their serum. This study was intended to demonstrate that this is also true of anti-MCV antibodies and antibodies against other citrullinated proteins.  (more…)

Autoimmunity Blog © 2020