COVID-19

August 16, 2021

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it has authorized a third dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for patients with compromised immune systems, such as patients with rheumatic disease.

August 13, 2021

Patients with rheumatic disease reported significant employment status changes, which may imply issues with healthcare access, affordable medication, mental health concerns, and rheumatic disease activity. However, they tended to follow public health advice and continued therapy to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 diagnosis.

August 12, 2021

Randall Cron, MD, PhD, discuss his lectures entitled, “The Immunology of COVID” and “The Role of Rheumatologists in COVID-19,” which will be presented at the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

August 10, 2021

Leonard Calabrese, DO, discusses his findings entitled, “Applied Immunology to Autoimmune Diseases: COVID-19 as Immunology,” which was presented at the Rheumatology Nurses Society Conference.

August 09, 2021

Only 11% of patients reported a flare that required treatment and no participants experienced severe flares. Approximately 60% of flares occurred after D2.

July 29, 2021

Common immunosuppressant therapies for patients with rheumatic disease, such as methotrexate and targeted biologics, increase risk of serious infection, especially with respiratory pathogens. A recent study investigates the connection between these drugs and functional humoral immunity to the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech).

July 15, 2021

In this observational cross-sectional study, investigators created a survey designed to understand the management and follow-up of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin American countries.

July 14, 2021

Research indicates that patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases (AIRD) did not differ from the general population in terms of protective antibody responses against COVID-19.

July 08, 2021

Irene Kazmers, MD, discusses the heavy administrative burden placed on all practicing physicians in the last decade and why she chose to begin concierge, or membership medicine, a practice model that has "proven to be a tremendous fit for my career at this point in time and made it possible for me to continue as a practicing rheumatologist."

July 07, 2021

Patients with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases had an increased risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and worse clinical outcomes of COVID-19, including death, although disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) did not increase the risk of these outcomes.