Objectives As global vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 disease commence, vaccine safety needs to be closely assessed. The safety profile of mRNA-based vaccines in patients with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIIRD) is unknown. The objective of this report is to raise awareness to reactivation of herpes zoster (HZ) following the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination in patients with AIIRD. Methods The safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination was assessed in an observational study monitoring post-vaccination adverse effects in patients with AIIRD (n = 491) and controls (n = 99), conducted in two Rheumatology Departments in Israel. Results The prevalence of HZ was 1.2% (n = 6) in patients with AIIRD compared with none in controls. Six female patients aged 49 ± 11 years with stable AIIRD: rheumatoid arthritis (n = 4), Sjogren’s syndrome (n = 1), and undifferentiated connective disease (n = 1), developed the first in a lifetime event of HZ within a short time after the first vaccine dose in 5 cases and after the second vaccine dose in one case. In the majority of cases, HZ infection was mild, except a case of HZ ophthalmicus, without corneal involvement, in RA patient treated with tofacitinib. There were no cases of disseminated HZ disease or postherpetic neuralgia. All but one patient received antiviral treatment with a resolution of HZ-related symptoms up to 6 weeks. Five patients completed the second vaccine dose without other adverse effects. Conclusion Epidemiologic studies on the safety of the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in patients with AIIRD are needed to clarify the association between the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination and reactivation of zoster.

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A cohort of patients with recently diagnosed axial spondyloarthritis (SpA) was characterized with emphasis on gender differences and factors leading to delay in diagnosis. Clinical, laboratory, and imaging data of 151 consecutive patients diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis or undifferentiated SpA in 2004-2009 and satisfying the new ASAS classification criteria for axial SpA, was collected and analyzed. Seventy-nine men and 72 women were enrolled. Both groups (men and women) had similar age of onset of disease-related symptoms, as well as similar delay time to diagnosis, follow-up duration and frequency of anti-TNF treatment. Inflammatory back pain, as a first symptom related to SpA, was reported more often by men, while women had more pelvic, heel, and widespread pain (WP) during the course of the disease. At the time of diagnosis, men were more limited in chest expansion and showed increased occiput-to-wall distance compared to women. Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and/or C-reactive protein were detected in a similar proportion of men and women. Presence of WP in women almost doubled the delay in the diagnosis of SpA. No other differences in disease presentation or burden were demonstrated to correlate with delay in diagnosis.

The purpose of this study was to review the data on the etiology, risk factors, clinical presentations, and diagnosis of acute sacroiliitis. A Pubmed search utilizing the indexing term "acute sacroiliitis" was conducted and the data pertinent to the aim of the review was extracted and organized in accordance with the preplanned structure of the manuscript. The diagnosis of acute sacroiliitis is often challenging because of both the relative rarity of this presentation and diverse character of acute sacroiliac pain, frequently mimicking other, more prevalent disorders. Technetium bone scintigraphy can localize the disease process to the sacroiliac joint, while computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging can be used for the detailed characterization and the extent of the disease as well as the diagnosis of complications. Pyogenic sacroiliitis is by far the most common cause of acute sacroiliitis. Brucellosis, acute sacroiliitis in the course of reactive arthritis, and crystalline-induced sacroiliitis frequently imitate pyogenic sacroiliitis. Acute sacroiliitis can rarely be also related to hematological malignancies or treatment with isotretinoin. Awareness to the possibility of acute sacroiliitis and a thorough physical examination are the necessary prerequisites to its timely diagnosis, while the appropriate laboratory and imaging studies should confirm the precise diagnosis and direct the appropriate treatment strategy.

Cytokines are signaling molecules secreted and sensed by immune and other cell types, enabling dynamic intercellular communication. Although a vast amount of data on these interactions exists, this information is not compiled, integrated or easily searchable. Here we report immuneXpresso, a text-mining engine that structures and standardizes knowledge of immune intercellular communication. We applied immuneXpresso to PubMed to identify relationships between 340 cell types and 140 cytokines across thousands of diseases. The method is able to distinguish between incoming and outgoing interactions, and it includes the effect of the interaction and the cellular function involved. These factors are assigned a confidence score and linked to the disease. By leveraging the breadth of this network, we predicted and experimentally verified previously unappreciated cell-cytokine interactions. We also built a global immune-centric view of diseases and used it to predict cytokine-disease associations. This standardized knowledgebase (http://www.immunexpresso.org) opens up new directions for interpretation of immune data and model-driven systems immunology.

Objective. Fibrosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Levels of lysyl oxidase (LOX), an extracellular enzyme that stabilizes collagen fibrils, have been found to be elevated in the skin of SSc patients, but have not been evaluated in the serum or correlated with the clinical parameters. We undertook this study to evaluate serum LOX levels in SSc patients and to correlate these levels with clinical parameters of SSc.Methods. SSc patients were evaluated for demographic features, clinical manifestations, routine laboratory tests, serum autoantibodies, serum LOX concentrations, and nailfold capillaroscopy patterns. They underwent pulmonary function testing, echocardiography, and high-resolution computed tomography scans of the lung, assessment of skin fibrosis by the modified Rodnan skin thickness score (MRSS), and assessment of disease severity and activity by the Medsger severity scale and the Valentini activity index.Results. Twenty-six SSc patients were evaluated and compared with 25 healthy controls and with 9 disease control patients with primary myelofibrosis. Almost 62% of the SSc patients (16 of 26) had limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc), while 38% had diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc) (10 of 26); 31% of the patients (8 of 26) had lung involvement. The LOX concentration in SSc patients was higher than that in healthy controls and similar to that in disease controls (P < 0.0001), and it was significantly higher in patients with dcSSc than in those with lcSSc (P ‫؍‬ 0.006). The LOX concentration correlated with the MRSS in patients without lung fibrosis.Conclusion. This study is the first to demonstrate high serum LOX levels in SSc patients that correlate specifically with skin fibrosis. These correlations suggest that LOX levels may serve as a novel biomarker of fibrosis. Future studies are warranted to determine whether LOX is a potential therapeutic target in SSc.Fibrosis is the main complication of systemic sclerosis (SSc) and its pathophysiology is complex. Despite our growing understanding of this process and the many targets available, our therapeutic success in ameliorating fibrosis in SSc is minimal (1). Moreover, even today, assessment of skin fibrosis is usually determined by the modified Rodnan skin thickness score (MRSS) (2), which is based on clinical inspection of 17 parts of the body, has significant interobserver variability, and is rather subjective (3). This is why other objective and specific markers for assessing fibrosis are needed.Type I collagen is the most abundant structural protein of the connective tissues, such as the skin. The formation of collagen is an active process that reflects a balance between degradation and synthesis and involves bone morphogenetic protein 1 (BMP-1), a disintegrin and metalloproteinase. Under physiologic conditions, the chemical crosslinking of collagen molecules incorporated in collagen fibrils is critical for the mechanical stability of these fibrils. Moreover, the presence of chemical crosslinks makes fibril-incorporated ...

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Objective: To describe the clinical features, management, and prognosis of patients presenting with clinical markers of spontaneous reperfusion (SR) during acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Design: Cohort study. Setting: National registry of 26 coronary care units. Patients: 2382 consecutive patients with AMI. Main outcome measures: Patient characteristics, management, and mortality. Results: The incidence of SR was 4% of patients (n = 98) compared with thrombolytic treatment (n = 1163, 49%), primary angioplasty (n = 102, 4%), and non-reperfusion (n = 1019, 43%). SR patients were more likely to develop less or no myocardial damage as indicated by a higher percentage of non-Q wave AMI (58% v 32%, 47%, and 44%, respectively, p < 0.0001), aborted AMI (25% v 9%, 8%, and 12%, p < 0.001), and lower peak creatine kinase (503 v 1384, 1519, and 751 IU, p < 0.0001). SR patients, however, were more likely to develop recurrent ischaemic events (35% v 17%, 12%, and 16%, respectively; p < 0.001) and subsequently were more likely to be referred to coronary angiography (67%), angioplasty (41%), or bypass surgery (16%, p < 0.001). Mortality at 30 days (1% v 8%, 7%, and 13%, respectively, p < 0.0001) and one year (6% v 11%, 12%, and 19%, p < 0.0001) was significantly lower for SR patients than for the other subgroups. By multivariate analysis, SR remained a strong determinant of 30 day survival (odds ratio (OR) 0.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01 to 0.74). At one year, the association between SR and survival decreased (OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.18 to 1.13). Conclusions: Clinical markers of SR are associated with greater myocardial salvage and favourable prognosis. The vulnerability of SR patients to recurrent ischaemic events suggests that they need close surveillance and may benefit from early intervention.