Epidemiology and clinical characteristics of interstitial lung disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis from the JointMan database.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a progressive fibrotic disease associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA); real-world data for evaluating RA-associated ILD (RA-ILD) are limited. We evaluated prevalence, time to onset, clinical characteristics and prognostic factors in patients diagnosed with RA (n = 8963) in the Discus Analytics JointMan database (2009-2019) with and without ILD. ILD prevalence was 4.

Epigenome association study for DNA methylation biomarkers in buccal and monocyte cells for female rheumatoid arthritis.

Genetics (i.e., mutations) has been assumed to be the major factor in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) etiology, but accounts for a minority of the variance in disease risk for RA.

Treatment Patterns, Disease Burden, and Outcomes in Patients with Giant Cell Arteritis and Polymyalgia Rheumatica: A Real-World, Electronic Health Record-Based Study of Patients in Clinical Practice.

Introduction: Because of the chronic nature of giant cell arteritis (GCA) and/or polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), patients may require continued glucocorticoid treatment to achieve treatment targets or prevent disease relapse, resulting in high cumulative doses. This study evaluated patterns of glucocorticoid use and outcomes in patients with GCA, PMR, or both.

Methods: This retrospective study used electronic medical records from a US rheumatology clinic utilizing the JointMan (Discus Analytics, LLC) rheumatology software.

Treatment Persistence and Clinical Outcomes of Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Cycling or Switching to a New Mechanism of Action Therapy: Real-world Observational Study of Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients in the United States with Prior Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Therapy.

Introduction: To examine treatment persistence and clinical outcomes associated with switching from a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) to a medication with a new mechanism of action (MOA) (abatacept, anakinra, rituximab, tocilizumab, or tofacitinib) versus cycling to another TNFi (adalimumab, certolizumab pegol, etanercept, golimumab, or infliximab) among patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Methods: This retrospective, longitudinal study included patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the JointMan US clinical database who received a TNFi in April 2010 or later and either cycled to a TNFi or switched to a new MOA therapy by March 2015. Cox proportional hazards models were used for time to non-persistence (switching or discontinuing).

Gold nanoparticles provide bright long-lasting vascular contrast for CT imaging.

Objective: Iodinated contrast agent for CT has a short half-life in the vasculature. As the field of interventional procedures expands, a more durable contrast agent would be highly useful. Our study investigated whether gold nanoparticles are feasible as a long-lasting vascular contrast agent for CT.

Synthesis, characterization, and functionalization of gold nanoparticles for cancer imaging.

This chapter describes the methodology by which mAb-F19-conjugated gold nanoparticles were prepared and used to label human pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Specifically, gold nanoparticles were coated with dithiol bearing hetero-bifunctional PEG (polyethylene glycol), and cancer-specific mAb F19 was attached by means of NHS-EDC coupling chemistry taking advantage of a carboxylic acid group on the heterobifunctional PEG. These conjugates were completely stable and were characterized by a variety of methods, including UV-Vis absorbance spectrometry, darkfield microscopy, DLS (dynamic light scattering), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), SEC (size-exclusion chromatography), and confocal microscopy.

Silver nanospheres are cytotoxic and genotoxic to fish cells.

Nanoparticles are being widely investigated for a range of applications due to their unique physical properties. For example, silver nanoparticles are used in commercial products for their antibacterial and antifungal properties. Some of these products are likely to result in silver nanoparticles reaching the aquatic environment.

PEGylated gold nanoparticles conjugated to monoclonal F19 antibodies as targeted labeling agents for human pancreatic carcinoma tissue.

In this study, we describe optical detection of antibody-conjugated nanoparticles bound to surgically resected human pancreatic cancer tissue. Gold nanoparticles stabilized by heterobifunctional polyethylene glycol (PEG) were prepared using approximately 15 nm spherical gold cores and covalently coupled to F19 monoclonal antibodies. The heterobifunctional PEG ligands contain a dithiol group for stable anchoring onto the gold surface and a terminal carboxy group for coupling of antibodies to the outside of the PEG shell.