The Lupus Foundation of America and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are co-funding a five-year, Phase 2 trial that will investigate mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a potential treatment for moderate to severe lupus. The lupus foundation had already announced a $3.8 million five-year grant supporting…
People who have had their appendix surgically removed, particularly younger women, are considerably more likely to develop systemic lupus erythematosus than those who have not had an appendectomy, researchers in Taiwan report. Women under age 50, in fact, were found to be at a 2.3 times greater risk of lupus following this surgery,…
Products derived from activating the complement pathway — a well-established player in the development of lupus — may server as a marker of disease activity and improve the monitoring of patients, a study reports. Researchers showed that EC4d, a product of the complement pathway bound to red blood cells, correlates…
Obesity in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is linked to worse disease activity, increased depression symptoms, and higher burden of pain and fatigue, a study reports. The study, “Obesity Independently Associates with Worse Patient-Reported Outcomes in Women with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus,” was published in the journal Arthritis…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved new automated diagnostic tests for lupus and ANCA-associated vasculitis, a form of blood vessel inflammation, Grifols, which will market these tests, announced. The two use the HELIOS system, developed by AESKU, which is the first and only automated…
The Phase 1b trial evaluating NKTR-358 — an investigational therapy that stimulates regulatory T-cell activation — in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has begun dosing patients, Nektar Therapeutics announced. Unlike immunosuppressive therapies that dampen the entire immune system, and are associated with potentially serious side effects, NKTR-358 was designed to restore the…
Treatment with 150 mg atacicept significantly improves outcomes in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with high disease activity, data from a Phase 2b clinical trial show. The results of the trial were presented recently at the 2018 SLEuro Annual Meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany in a poster titled “SRI response,…
Harmless bacteria that live in the skin, mouth and gut may trigger autoimmunity in people who are genetically disposed to it, according to a study with lupus implications. This means that targeting what scientists call commensal bacteria could be a way to development treatments for lupus and other autoimmune diseases,…
Determining the activity of an enzyme in the blood could help doctors diagnose and track the progression of lupus, a Chinese study suggests. The research, “Serum adenosine deaminase activity is increased in systemic lupus erythematosus patients and correlated with disease activity,” was published in the journal Immunologic Research. A…
In addition to their role in coagulation and healing, platelets seem to be involved in the response to foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses, contributing to an exacerbated immune response, a new study shows. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggests that platelets play…