News

AstraZeneca’s Fasenra (benralizumab) — approved for a rare type of asthma — does no worse than Nucala (mepolizumab) at keeping eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) in remission. These are the first findings of the head-to-head Phase 3 MANDARA clinical trial (NCT04157348) that showed the study met its…

Researchers in Korea have developed a new system to classify ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) into clusters, and provided an algorithm that can be used for such classification in future clinical studies. “This simple algorithm can incorporate any patient with atypical or nonspecific symptoms and can be easily modified to identify…

Subclinical changes are evident in the small blood vessels in the back of the eye and in the nails of people with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) that are not associated with overt eye or nail symptoms, a study showed. Notably, a reduced blood vessel density in patients’ eyes, assessed via…

ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) patients with kidney disease have significantly more activity among six genes associated with forming neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), a type of antimicrobial web produced by immune neutrophil cells, a study shows. The activity levels of these genes increases with kidney function decline and is tied to…

Two years of treatment with Nucala (mepolizumab) safely and effectively reduces signs and symptoms of hard-to-treat eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), the rarest form of ANCA-associated vasculitis. That’s according to a real-world study in Italy that also found similar outcomes with benralizumab, a therapy that works similarly to…

The prognostic immune nutritional index or PINI — a novel clinical tool based on counts of immune cells and levels of a blood protein called albumin — can be used to help predict the risk of death in people with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), a new study shows. For serious…

Microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) was the most common type of ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) among girls and Hispanic children in a California tertiary care hospital, a small study has found. While time to diagnosis was shorter, children with the disorder seemed to need more intensive care and dialysis, a treatment that…

A rare case of two family members with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), a type of ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), highlights the potential genetic underpinnings of the autoimmune disease, according to a recent report. This case of a mother and son both presenting with GPA add to a small, but accumulating,…

An approach that removes specific antibodies from a person’s blood is better than a standard, more general blood-cleaning procedure called plasma exchange at clearing the self-reactive antibodies that drive ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV). That’s according to a small study in China that looked at data from AAV patients with severe…

People with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) often face a high medication burden — managing multiple medications, also known as polypharmacy — with most patients covered by Medicare on five or more treatments at the same time in the first year after their diagnosis, a study found. Among the factors…