Background Various observations have suggested that the course of COVID-19 might be less favourable in patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases receiving rituximab compared with those not receiving rituximab. We aimed to investigate whether treatment with rituximab is associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes in patients with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.Methods In this cohort study, we analysed data from the French RMD COVID-19 cohort, which included patients aged 18 years or older with inflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases and highly suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The primary endpoint was the severity of COVID-19 in patients treated with rituximab (rituximab group) compared with patients who did not receive rituximab (no rituximab group). Severe disease was defined as that requiring admission to an intensive care unit or leading to death. Secondary objectives were to analyse deaths and duration of hospital stay. The inverse probability of treatment weighting propensity score method was used to adjust for potential confounding factors (age, sex, arterial hypertension, diabetes, smoking status, body-mass index, interstitial lung disease, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, corticosteroid use, chronic renal failure, and the underlying disease [rheumatoid arthritis vs others]). Odds ratios and hazard ratios and their 95% CIs were calculated as effect size, by dividing the two population mean differences by their SD. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04353609.

Objective. To analyze the factors associated with response to anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) treatment and compare the efficacy and safety of infliximab (IFX) and adalimumab (ADA) in patients with refractory noninfectious uveitis.Methods. This was a multicenter observational study of 160 patients (39% men and 61% women; median age 31 years [interquartile range 21-42]) with uveitis that had been refractory to other therapies, who were treated with anti-TNF (IFX 5 mg/kg at weeks 0, 2, 6, and then every 5-6 weeks [n 5 98] or ADA 40 mg every 2 weeks [n 5 62]). Factors associated with complete response were assessed by multivariate analysis. Efficacy and safety of IFX versus ADA were compared using a propensity score approach with baseline characteristics taken into account. Subdistribution hazard ratios (SHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated.Results. The main etiologies of uveitis included Behçet's disease (BD) (36%), juvenile idiopathic arthritis (22%), spondyloarthropathy (10%), and sarcoidosis (6%). The overall response rate at 6 and 12 months was 87% (26% with complete response) and 93% (28% with complete response), respectively. The median time to complete response was 2 months. In multivariate analysis, BD and occurrence of >5 uveitis flares before anti-TNF initiation were associated with complete response to anti-TNF (SHR 2.52 [95% CI 1.35-4.71], P 5 0.004 and SHR 1.97 [95% CI 1.02-3.84], P 5 0.045, respectively). Side effects were reported in 28% of patients, including serious adverse events in 13%. IFX and ADA did not differ significantly in terms of occurrence of complete response (SHR 0.65 [95% CI 0.25-1.71], P 5 0.39), serious side effects (SHR 0.22 [95% CI

Postmenopausal osteoporosis is characterized by the occurrence of fragility fracture with an increase in morbidity and mortality. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have raised interest as regulators of translational repression, mediating a number of key processes, including bone tissue in both physiological and diseased states. The aim of this study was to examine the serum levels of 32 preselected miRNAs with reported function in bone and their association with osteoporotic fracture. We performed cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses from the OFELY Cohort. Serum levels of the miRNAs were quantified by qRT-PCR in 682 women: 99 premenopausal and 583 postmenopausal women, with 1 and 122 women with prevalent fragility fractures in each group, respectively. We have collected clinical variables (such as age, prevalent, and incident fractures), bone turnover markers (BTMs), BMD by dual X-ray absorptiometry, and bone microarchitecture with HRpQCT. We observed a number of miRNAs to be associated with fragility fractures (prevalent or incident), BTMs, BMD, and microarchitecture. This effect, however, was negated after age adjustment. This may be because age was also strongly associated with the serum levels of the 32 miRNAs (correlation coefficient up to 0.49), confirming previous findings. In conclusion, in a well-characterized prospective cohort with a sizeable sample size, we found no evidence that these 32 preselected miRNAs were not associated with BTMs, BMD, microarchitecture, and or fragility fractures. Ã CTX, mg/L (min-max) 0.466 (0.057-1.470) 0.374 (0.107-1.030) 0.481 (0.057-1.470) Ã Osteocalcin, ng/mL (min-max) Ã Ã p value considered as significant if <0.05. Tt.vBMD ¼ total volumetric bone mineral density; Ct.vBMD ¼ cortical volumetric bone mineral density; Tb.vBMD ¼ trabecular volumetric bone mineral density; BAP ¼ bone alkaline phosphatase. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research LACK OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN miRNAs AND BONE: DATA FROM THE OFELY COHORT 5 FEURER ET AL. Ã Radius Tt.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 245.6 (122.9-482.1) 278.1 (101.9-515.8) Ã Radius Ct.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 771.9 (556.9-956.4) 803.0 (572.6-1004.8) Ã Radius Tb.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 123.2 (50.3-264.0) 141.8 (17.5-262.8) Ã Tibia Tt.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 228.3 (124.2-371.2) 252.8 (109.0-417.4) Ã Tibia Ct.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 702.6 (437.7-912.7) 744.6 (376.7-976.6) Ã Tibia Tb.vBMD, mg/cm 3 (min-max) 133.6 (52.0-212.6) 149.3 (31.9-254.7) Ã CTX, mg/L (min-max) 0.463 (0.057-1.16) 0.484 (0.062-1.470) NS Osteocalcin, ng/mL (min-max) 28.6 (4.2-90.2) 27.7 (6.5-86.2) NS P1NP, ng/mL (min-max) 49.0 (8.1-138.6) 21.5 (10.0-139.7) NS BAP, UI/L (min-max) 39.3 (15.2-69.4) 38.8 (10.1-88.6) NS Ã p-value considered as significant if <0.05. Tt.vBMD ¼ total volumetric bone mineral density; Ct.vBMD ¼ cortical volumetric bone mineral density; Tb.vBMD ¼ trabecular volumetric bone mineral density; BAP ¼ bone alkaline phosphatase. 8 FEURER ET AL.