Publications by authors named "Francesco Carubbi"

Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to explore gender differences in the phenotypical expression of Behçet's disease (BD) using data from the International AIDA Network Registry, focusing on damage index, disease manifestations, and cardiovascular risk.
  • A total of 1024 patients (567 males and 457 females) were examined, revealing that males had a significantly higher overall damage index and more frequent occurrences of uveitis and vascular involvement, while females showed higher instances of arthralgia, arthritis, and CNS involvement.
  • Key factors associated with major organ involvement included male gender, treatment with biologic agents, origin from endemic regions, and longer disease duration, indicating a more severe course of BD in males compared to females.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A study explored the vaccine-related adverse events (AEs) and COVID-19 impacts among young adults (ages 18-35) with autoimmune diseases compared to healthy individuals, analyzing 20,685 responses from COVID-19 vaccination surveys.
  • It found that early mild AEs were more common in patients with rheumatic (RMDs) and non-rheumatic autoimmune diseases (nr-ADs) compared to healthy controls, while severe AEs were rare across all groups.
  • Despite the differences in infection and flare reports, the study confirmed the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine's safety for young adults with autoimmune diseases, noting that disease type plays a bigger role in infection experiences than the use of immunosuppress
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The clinical relevance of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) subtypes such as HLA-B51 on Behçet's disease (BD)-related uveitis and non-infectious uveitis (NIU) unrelated to BD remains largely unknown.

Methods: Data were prospectively collected from the International AIDA Network Registry for BD and for NIU. We assessed differences between groups (NIU unrelated to BD and positive for HLA-B51, BD-related uveitis positive for HLA-B51 and BD-related uveitis negative for HLA-B51) in terms of long-term ocular complications, visual acuity (VA) measured by best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), anatomical pattern, occurrence of retinal vasculitis (RV) and macular edema over time.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study evaluated the effectiveness of a systemic score in predicting severe outcomes in patients with Still disease, including the risk of mortality and severe complications like macrophage activation syndrome.
  • Involving 597 patients, the study found that a higher systemic score significantly correlated with life-threatening outcomes, with scores of 7 or above indicating a greater risk.
  • Key components that were most predictive of severe outcomes included liver and lung involvement, emphasizing the importance of these factors in managing Still disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Evidence that psoriatic disease is burdened by an excess cardiovascular (CV) risk has accrued, however many questions remain unanswered. Although an interplay between traditional risk factors inflammation, disease activity and pharmacological therapies, as observed in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), may account for this increased risk, metabolic comorbidities rather than inflammation seem to have a leading role in psoriatic disease. Therefore, specific approaches, risk factors targeting and the importance of traditional risk factors and inflammation management need to be considered.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To review randomised controlled trials (RCT) investigating colchicine (COL) for cardiovascular (CV) prevention in patients at high to very high CV risk aiming to extract data that could be useful in rheumatology practice.

Methods: A systematic search of multiple databases according to the PICO framework was performed from inception to April 3, 2023. Three researchers independently screened abstracts/titles and reviewed full texts reviewed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is frequently associated with autoimmune thyroiditis (AT). The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of AT in a national cohort of pSS and to describe the clinical and histological phenotype of patients with pSS and associated AT.

Methods: In this multicentre cross-sectional study, data from 2546 pSS were collected and the presence of AT was reported.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Immune system deregulation, including AAV, is a key event that may potentially evolve into ESRD. Abnormal activation of the cAP is also a cardinal feature of TMA, particularly aHUS. The kidney is the most frequently involved organ, and renal-limited forms of TMA are often encountered in clinical practice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The strong genetic association between HLA-B*27 and spondyloarthritis (SpA) accounts for about 90% of the susceptibility to axial SpA (axSpA), and the presence of HLA-B*27 is helpful in classifying patients according to the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society (ASAS) classification criteria. However, over the years, other HLA-B alleles have been associated with an increased risk of developing SpA; on this basis, the aim of our study was to describe the demographic, clinical, and radiological characteristics of a cohort of SpA patients who were negative for HLA-B*27. We identified 85 patients with a clinical diagnosis of SpA displaying HLA-B alleles other than HLA-B*27; HLA-B*51 emerged as the most prevalent allele (N = 33, 39%), regardless of the fulfilment of either the axial or the peripheral ASAS criteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - This study investigates whether pediatric-onset, adult-onset, and elderly-onset Still's disease are the same condition or different diseases by comparing demographic, clinical, and treatment response data across these age groups.
  • - Out of 411 patients surveyed, most were adults (76.4%), while 15.8% were pediatric and 7.8% were elderly, with significant differences found in symptoms like skin rash and arthritis being more prevalent in children, and pleuritis in the elderly.
  • - Overall, while some minor differences in symptoms and lab results were noted among the age groups, the study concludes that Still's disease has similar demographic and treatment characteristics across pediatric, adult, and elderly patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates how environmental factors, specifically climate-related natural hazards, may affect the diagnosis and symptoms of Sjögren's syndrome across different countries, examining aspects like epidemiological profiles and sicca symptoms.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from 16,042 patients in 23 countries, determining that those in countries severely impacted by climate hazards (like extreme precipitation and flooding) were often diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome earlier and exhibited varying symptom frequencies.
  • - Findings revealed statistically significant patterns, indicating lower occurrences of dry eyes and mouth in patients from countries facing specific climate threats, while showing that increased climate-related risks correlated with higher disease activity scores (ESSDAI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To analyse how the potential exposure to air pollutants can influence the key components at the time of diagnosis of Sjögren's phenotype (epidemiological profile, sicca symptoms, and systemic disease).

Methods: For the present study, the following variables were selected for harmonization and refinement: age, sex, country, fulfilment of 2002/2016 criteria items, dry eyes, dry mouth, and overall ESSDAI score. Air pollution indexes per country were defined according to the OECD (1990-2021), including emission data of nitrogen and sulphur oxides (NO/SO), particulate matter (PM2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Different patient clusters were preliminarily suggested to dissect the clinical heterogeneity in Still's disease. Thus, we aimed at deriving and validating disease clusters in a multicentre, observational, prospective study to stratify these patients.

Methods: Patients included in GIRRCS AOSD-study group and AIDA Network Still Disease Registry were assessed if variables for cluster analysis were available (age, systemic score, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C reactive protein (CRP) and ferritin).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Bempedoic acid (BA) is a small-molecule first-in-class of inhibitor of ATP citrate lyase that significantly lowers low-density lipoproteins cholesterol (LDL-c) in statin-intolerant and inadequate responders. Increased serum uric acid (SUA) levels and gout incidence have been described in BA-treated patients. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the safety of BA regarding SUA levels and gout in randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on patients with Still's disease to identify clinical and laboratory signs associated with macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), a serious complication.
  • Out of 414 patients examined, 39 (9.4%) developed MAS, with several significant variables like liver involvement and high ferritin levels linked to its occurrence.
  • Multivariate analysis revealed that having hepatomegaly and monoarthritis were directly associated with MAS, while factors like a normal platelet count were protective against its development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Behçet's disease (BD) is a heterogeneous multifactorial autoinflammatory disease characterized by a plethora of clinical manifestations. Cutaneous lesions are considered hallmarks of the disease. However, their evolution over time and a thorough description are scarcely reported in non-endemic regions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The term spondyloarthritis (SpA) encompasses a group of interrelated disorders characterised by the involvement of the musculoskeletal system as well as extra-articular manifestations like acute anterior uveitis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Likewise, IBD may present with various extra-intestinal manifestations among which those involving the musculoskeletal system, namely peripheral and axial SpA are the most common. The identification of patients with both SpA and IBD is of paramount importance in clinical practice since the coexistence of these two entities has been associated with great disability and decreased quality of life.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A study assessed the clinical characteristics and treatment effectiveness of methotrexate (MTX) in patients with Still's disease, focusing on changes in disease activity and inflammatory markers.
  • Among the 171 patients studied, MTX was commonly used with glucocorticoids (GCs), and many showed significant improvement, with 38.6% achieving clinical remission and reduced inflammation.
  • The results suggest that MTX is effective in managing Still's disease symptoms, reducing the need for GCs, though some patients discontinued MTX due to side effects or lack of efficacy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: What baseline predictors would be involved in mortality in people with primary Sjögren syndrome (SjS) remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the baseline characteristics collected at the time of diagnosis of SjS associated with mortality and to identify mortality risk factors for all-cause death and deaths related to systemic SjS activity measured by the ESSDAI score.

Methods: In this international, real-world, retrospective, cohort study, we retrospectively collected data from 27 countries on mortality and causes of death from the Big Data Sjögren Registry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: This paper describes the creation and preliminary results of a patient-driven registry for the collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and patient-reported experiences (PREs) in Behçet's disease (BD).

Methods: The project was coordinated by the University of Siena and the Italian patient advocacy organization SIMBA (Associazione Italiana Sindrome e Malattia di Behçet), in the context of the AIDA (AutoInflammatory Diseases Alliance) Network programme. Quality of life, fatigue, socioeconomic impact of the disease and therapeutic adherence were selected as core domains to include in the registry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF