Association of positive psychological variables with disease activity, functional disability and erythrocyte sedimentation rate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a preliminary study.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease which has shown positive correlations between negative psychological variables and disease activity in transversal studies and in the follow-up. However, the association of positive psychological variables with disease parameters including disease activity (DAS-28), functional disability (HAQ) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) has not been investigated. Patients with RA attending the external consultation of a third level hospital were invited to participate and fill in a questionnaire with personal, disease and psychological variables; body mass index was also obtained as well as ESR. A total of 49 patients were included. The three dependent variables correlated among them, with the highest correlation for DAS-28 and HAQ (r=0.645, p<0.01), followed by somatization and HAQ (r=0.614, p<0.01) or DAS-28 (r=0.537, P<0.01). In addition, HAQ showed negative correlations with environmental mastery (r=- 0.366, p<0.01), personal growth (r=-0.292, p<0.05) and monthly extra money (r=-0.328, p<0.05), and borderline negative correlations with emotion perception (r=-0.279, p=0.053) and self-acceptance (r=-0.250, p=0.08). ESR showed a significant negative correlation with emotion perception (r=-0.475, p<0.01). In conclusion, we observed important correlations of positive psychological variables with disease activity, functional disability and ESR that could be addressed in order to prevent or treat these disease features.

Peficitinib hydrobromide to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Peficitinib hydrobromide is a small Janus kinase inhibitor (JAK1, JAK2, JAK3 and TYK2) molecule for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Phase II and phase III clinical trials and extension studies with different doses have been conducted to assess the drug's efficacy and safety with substantially improved outcomes observed in RA. This JAK inhibitor oral drug demonstrated clinical response as once-daily monotherapy in patients with moderate to severe RA, also in combination with methotrexate (MTX), who had an inadequate response to MTX. The findings from studies of this new JAK inhibitor have shown that, both in monotherapy as well as in combination with conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs), it has efficacy, safety and tolerability in RA patients.

Effect of stress on the Schultz-Dale reaction in guinea pig aorta.

The smooth muscle of thoracic aorta from guinea pig sensitized with egg albumin (EA) produced an anaphylactic contraction when it was exposed to EA. Experiments were performed to evaluate stress effects on the anaphylactic contraction in guinea pig aortic rings. Two types of stressors were used as immunosuppressor stimuli: physical restraint and shaking of the animals. Both stressors diminished the amplitude of the Schultz-Dale contraction in aortic rings from sensitized guinea pig. The shake stress stimulus interrupted several times during each session induced higher immunosuppression in animals in which the active sensitization and the stress sessions began the same day. Severe restraint stress, prior to active immunization, also suppressed significantly the anaphylactic response. The Schulz-Dale reaction in guinea pig aorta seems to be a valuable technique to study the stress effects on the anaphylactic response.