Annals of the rheumatic diseases

Rheumatologists and rheumatology have had a prominent role in the conceptualisation of nociplastic pain since the prototypical nociplastic pain condition is fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia had been previously known as fibrositis, until it became…

Fundamental insight gained over the last decades led to the discovery of cytokines as pivotal drivers of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis/psoriasis arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, atopic dermatitis and s…

OBJECTIVES: The impact of inflammatory arthritis (IA) on male fertility remains unexplored. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of IA on several male fertility outcomes; fertility rate (number of biological children per man), family pl…

OBJECTIVES: The aetiologies of endometriosis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are all characterised by immune dysfunction. SLE and RA occur more often in women, and reproductive and hormonal factors have bee…

OBJECTIVES: To identify the functional basis for the genetic association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), upstream of the RUNX3 promoter, with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). METHODS: We performed conditional analysis of genetic asso…

OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy and safety of golimumab over 104 weeks in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis. METHODS: At baseline, patients with active ankylosing spondylitis (n=356) were randomly assigned (1:1.8:1.8) to subcut…

OBJECTIVE: To study maternal and fetal outcome in women with past or present histologically proven systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) nephritis. METHOD: Retrospective study of 32 pregnancies in 22 women with past or present histologically …

The main haematological manifestations seen in patients with antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) are thrombocytopenia, usually mild, and haemolytic anaemia with a positive Coombs test. Owing to the shared characteristics with idiopathic throm…

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the incidence of ovarian failure after pulse cyclophosphamide treatment in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and to compare this with two control groups: SLE patients treated with azathioprine, and a healthy age m…

The menstrual cycle is characterised by variations in the absolute and relative concentrations of the hormones of the hypothalamic pituitary ovarian axis, which in turn affect cell function and cytokine and heat shock protein production. Me…