Autoimmunity News

Thursday, April 17, 2008 PAH Differs in Connective Tissue Diseases
Patients with PAH due to connective tissue disease have more dysfunctional pulmonary capillary endothelium than those with PAH from other causes... 

Friday, April 11, 2008 FDA Warns of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy With CellCept
FDA informed healthcare professionals that it is investigating a potential association between the use of mycophenolate mofetil and development of PML...

Thursday, April 10, 2008 Omega-3 Free Fatty Acids for the Maintenance of Remission in Crohn’s Disease
Researchers found that omega-3 free fatty acids were not effective in preventing relapse in patients with Crohn’s disease…

Monday, April 07, 2008 Analysis Finds Etanercept, Adalimumab More Cost-Effective Than Infliximab for Medicare Use
A model comparing costs and effectiveness of the biologics currently covered for treating RA in US Medicare beneficiaries has shown that etanercept (ETN) and adalimumab (ADA) are both more cost-effective than infliximab (INF)…

Friday, April 04, 2008 Work Disability Still High in RA, But May Be Improving
More than one third of RA patients become unable to work for at least some period within 10 years’ disease duration. Of those, 39% eventually return to work, <40% blame their RA for their work disability, and work disability appears to have decreased substantially in patients with long-standing RA over the past 15 to 20 years...

Wednesday, April 02, 2008 New, Easy-to-Use Resting Energy Expenditure Equations for RA
Easy-to-implement new resting energy expenditure (REE) equations that take rheumatoid arthritis (RA)-induced hypermetabolism into account may help better monitor resting metabolism in RA patients without relying on sophisticated, time-consuming, and expensive indirect calorimetry…

Tuesday, April 01, 2008 Trubion Announces SBI-087, a Fully Humanized CD20-directed Compound, as Next-Generation Product Candidate for RA and SLE; TRU-015 to Enter Phase IIb RA Clinical Trial
Trubion Pharmaceuticals, Inc announced that its collaboration partner Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has filed an investigational new drug (IND) application for SBI-087 for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and clinical trial sites are preparing to enroll patients in a phase I study...

Monday, March 31, 2008 CRP, Anti-CCP, Ultrasound Can Predict Which RA Patients Need Early, Aggressive Treatment to Stave Off Rapid Progression
RA patients with rapidly progressing disease will benefit most from aggressive early treatment with biologics and can be identified using markers such as CRP, anti-CCP, and ultrasound evidence of joint erosion...

Thursday, March 27, 2008 High Dose IVIg May Prevent Miscarriage in Lupus Pregnancies
High dose intravenous immunoglubulin (IVIg) therapy may help pregnant women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) who have a history of recurrent miscarriage improve their disease and pregnancy outcomes…

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 UCB Reports That CHMP Upholds Negative Opinion on Cimzia^® (certolizumab pegol) for Crohn’s Disease
The European Medicines Agency Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has rejected UCB's appeal to have Cimzia^® (certolizumab pegol) approved for the treatment of Crohn’s disease patients...