Rheumatic diseases affect a significant portion of the population and lead to increased health care costs, disability, and premature mortality; effective preventive measures for these diseases could lead to substantial…
Despite treatment advances, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is still associated with significant disability, decreased work capacity, and reduced life expectancy. Effective immunotherapies to restore immune tolerance promise greater specificity, lower toxicity,…
The etiology of most systemic autoimmune diseases remains unknown. There is often a preclinical period of systemic autoimmunity prior to the onset of clinically classifiable disease; established and emerging data…
There exists a preclinical phase to the disease progression of rheumatoid arthritis, in which there is evidence of autoimmunity but no overt clinical arthritis. Identifying patients in this phase would…
Studies suggest that many persons with painful osteoarthritis already have extensive structural disease including malalignment, which may preclude successful stabilization or reversal of disease; this provides a strong rationale for…
Signs and symptoms often occur well in advance of a formal diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, these do not necessarily represent symptoms that are included in classification criteria. Their…
In recent years the early identification of axial spondyloarthritis has become a high priority area of research. Evidence that therapy may slow radiographic progression of disease has heightened the importance…
Although there are many examples of autoantibodies in disease-free individuals, they can be a preclinical phenomenon heralding future autoimmune rheumatic disease. They may be a marker for autoreactive B-cell activation…
Rheumatic diseases offer distinct challenges to researchers because of heterogeneity in disease phenotypes, low disease incidence, and geographic variation in genetic and environmental factors. Emerging research areas, including epigenetics, metabolomics,…
Preclinical lupus encompasses a spectrum from enhanced SLE risk without clinical symptoms to individuals with autoantibodies and some SLE clinical features without meeting ACR classification. Studies have identified antibody and…
