30 June 2022
We took a trip to EULAR in Copenhagen earlier this month. Here, our President Dr Sanjeev Patel and our Vice President Yeliz Prior (pictured) share their highlights.
Yeliz's highlights
Digital health and tailored interventions for improving patients’ adherence: opportunities and challenges
Adoption of digital health strategies in the management of patients with RMDs. Adherence to physical exercise was discussed as a key and complex issue, with little insights from systematic reviews and epidemiological studies to establish potential predictors to develop tailored interventions.
HPR session in implementation science: how do we overcome the research-to-practice gap?
Presentations on new EULAR recommendations e.g. self-management in inflammatory arthritis: implementing EULAR recommendations into health professionals in rheumatology (HPR) clinical practice and development of an interdisciplinary, nurse-coordinated self-management intervention (INSELMA) presented by Prof Jette Primdahl.
Is there a need for gender-sensitised support in RMDs?
Dr Caroline Flurey presented findings around men needing permission to open up and talk, so clinicians could explicitly ask about emotional wellbeing or ‘mental fitness’.
Sanjeev's highlights
OA – evolving treatments by Prof Tonia Vincent
Compared to rheumatoid arthritis, we're a long way from having effective treatments in osteoarthritis (OA) that are both structure-modifying (reducing rate of damage in OA) and symptom-modifying. This lecture was an excellent overview of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for OA that included our current limitations in drug treatment.
There was an update on novel therapies: those that had not met primary end-points in trials but also those that may be more promising in the future. It was good to see that there are candidate drugs still in development, some in fast-track status.
Bench to bedside: the complement system in rheumatic diseases
The complement system is challenging to understand, with considerable limitations on how we can test for abnormalities in patients. This session gave an overview of basic sciences, the complement system in rheumatic diseases and finished with a lecture on how the complement system targeted for therapeutic benefit.
Avocapan is licensed as a treatment for ANCA vasculitis and its cost-effectiveness for the NHS is currently being evaluated by NICE. If it's approved, we'll all need to refresh our knowledge of the complement system and how this drug should be used in patient care.
SLE: update on treatment of lupus nephritis
This session started with a lecture on the pathogenesis of lupus and how this understanding led to the development of new targeted drug therapies. This really was a masterclass in the current understanding of the immunology of abnormalities driving SLE and the strength and limitations of drug trials in this disease.
This was complemented by a practical lecture on its management, which continues to be a common SLE complication. Discussion about different cyclophosphamide regimens, rituximab and combination therapy was useful.
Practical skills – what to make of a positive blood test?
This was a useful overview, helping understanding of different methods of testing autoantibodies and practical tips on their interpretation. I really liked the focus on clinical probabilities being important as opposed to using these tests as screening tests. The presenters also helped understanding by using case presentations of relevant patients.
Sanjeev and Yeliz were also able to catch up with Dr Mwidimi Ndosi, recipient of this year’s Annual Conference Droitwich Award, and presented him with his trophy (pictured below – left to right is Yeliz, Mwidimi and Sanjeev).
