Recommendations of the French Society of Rheumatology for the management in current practice of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica.

OBJECTIVE: To develop recommendations for the routine management of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR). METHODS: Following standard procedures, a systematic review of the literature by five supervised junior rheumatologists, based on the questions selected by the steering committee (5 senior rheumatologists), was used as the basis for working meetings, followed by a one-day plenary meeting with the working group (15 members), leading to the development of the wording and determination of the strength of the recommendations and the level of agreement of the experts. RESULTS: Five general principles and 19 recommendations were drawn up. Three recommendations relate to diagnosis and the use of imaging, and five to the assessment of the disease, its activity and comorbidities. Non-pharmacological therapies are the subject of one recommendation. Three recommendations concern initial treatment based on general corticosteroid therapy, five concern the reduction of corticosteroid therapy and follow-up, and two concern corticosteroid dependence and steroid-sparing treatments (anti-IL-6). CONCLUSION: These recommendations take account of current data on PMR, with the aim of reducing exposure to corticosteroid therapy and its side effects in a fragile population. They are intended to be practical, to help practitioners in the day-to-day management of patients with PMR.

Healthy Patients Are Not the Best Controls for Microbiome-Based Clinical Studies: Example of Sjögren's Syndrome in a Systematic Review.

Introduction: It has been hypothesized that gut and oral dysbiosis may contribute to the development of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS). The aim of this systematic review was to assemble available data regarding the oral and gut microbiota in pSS and to compare them to data from healthy individuals and patients with dry symptoms without a diagnosis of Sjögren's syndrome or lupus disease to identify dysbiosis and discuss the results. Methodology: Using the PRISMA guidelines, we systematically reviewed studies that compared the oral and gut microbiota of Sjögren's patients and controls. The PubMed database and Google Scholar were searched. Results: Two-hundred and eighty-nine studies were found, and 18 studies were included: 13 referred to the oral microbiota, 4 referred to the gut microbiota, and 1 referred to both anatomical sites. The most frequent controls were healthy volunteers and patients with sicca symptoms. The most common analysis method used was 16S-targeted metagenomics. The results were mostly heterogeneous, and the results regarding diversity were not always in accordance. Dysbiosis in pSS was not confirmed, and reduced salivary secretion seems to explain more microbial changes than the underlying disease. Conclusion: These heterogeneous results might be explained by the lack of a standardized methodology at each step of the process and highlight the need for guidelines. Our review provides evidence that sicca patients seem to be more relevant than healthy subjects as a control group.

Memory B Cells and Response to Abatacept in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Abatacept is a fusion protein (CTLA4-Ig) and therapeutic molecule labeled for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Abatacept acts both by disrupting the CD28-mediated activation of T cells and by interacting with CD80/CD86 molecules present on antigen presenting cells such as monocytes and memory B cells. Accordingly and to evaluate clinical and biological parameters associated with response to abatacept, a retrospective monocentric study was conducted in 43 patients with RA, and the clinical response was evaluated at 6 months according to EULAR response criteria. Median age of the patients was 59.8 ± 15.1 years including 35 females and 8 males. At baseline, no difference was observed between non-responders (NR, n = 11), moderate responders (MR, n = 21), and good responders (GR, n = 11) to abatacept with regards to demographic, biological, and clinical characteristics of the patients (age, sex, anti-CCP, RF, FcγR3A V158F polymorphism, and C3/C4 complement reduction). Moreover, peripheral blood lymphocyte phenotyping was performed by flow cytometry revealing in 30 RA patients compared to controls (n = 45; median age 56.7 ± 13.5 years) that the initial CD19+ B cell count was reduced in NR and MR but not in GR. No differences were observed with regards to total lymphocyte, T cell, and NK cell counts. Next, we further explored the effects of abatacept on B cell subsets (IgD/CD38 in panel 1 and IgD/CD27 in panel 2) and observed that the basal level of CD38+ and/or CD27+ memory B cell count was important for an abatacept response and that a selective effect of abatacept was observed on memory B cells after 6 months. In conclusion, and although these data need to be confirmed in an independent cohort, our data support a role for memory B cells in the mechanism of action of abatacept in RA.