Olokizumab, a monoclonal antibody against interleukin 6, in combination with methotrexate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis inadequately controlled by methotrexate: efficacy and safety results of a randomised controlled phase III study.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of olokizumab (OKZ) in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis despite treatment with methotrexate (MTX).

Methods: In this 24-week multicentre, placebo-controlled, double-blind study, patients were randomised 1:1:1 to receive subcutaneously administered OKZ 64 mg once every 2 weeks, OKZ 64 mg once every 4 weeks, or placebo plus MTX. The primary efficacy endpoint was the proportion of patients achieving an American College of Rheumatology 20% (ACR20) response at week 12.

Ventricular tachycardia as the first manifestation of Churg-Strauss syndrome.

Life-threatening arrhythmias are often found in heart diseases, but they are rare as clinical symptoms of Churg-Strauss syndrome. We report a case of a 66-year-old woman with symptomatic monomorphic ventricular tachycardia as the first sign of Churg-Strauss syndrome. Cardiac manifestations were the main clinical symptoms of the disease, and changes in other organs were weakly expressed.

Anti-hnRNP B1 (RA33) autoantibodies are associated with the clinical phenotype in Russian patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic sclerosis.

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs) are potent autoantigenic targets in systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARD). Loss of tolerance to the RA33 complex consisting of hnRNP A2 and its alternatively spliced variants B1 and B2 has been the interest of rheumatologists. A novel ELISA for the detection of anti-hnRNP B1 autoantibodies has been developed to investigate the prevalence thereof in 397 patients with SARD, including patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), spondyloarthropathy (SPA), juvenile chronic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), and Sjögren's syndrome (SS), in comparison to 174 controls.