Dear All

Merry Christmas and wishing you all a phenomenal year in 2017.

The last issue of 2016 has two interesting studies – one meta-analysis (Tay SH, Fairhurst AM. Autoimmune Rev 2016 Dec) on the Anti NMDA receptor subunits NR 2A/B antibody and the other (Pars K, Pul R et al. Eur Neurol. 2016 Dec) on CSF findings in patients with Sjogren’s syndrome (SS). While there is data on Neuropsychiatric (NP) lupus, NP Sjogren’s has seldom been studied well. The meta-analysis confirms the increased prevalence of the Anti NR2A/B antibody in patients of both lupus and SS, more so in those with NP SLE and NP SS, but there are no definite associations reported with the various manifestations. The CSF study, very useful for day to day clinics, shows no specific changes in NP SS patients and therefore the presence of significant findings like pleocytosis or raised proteins would suggest some other autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis or infection – two not uncommon dilemmas in these settings.

There are other intriguing abstracts with some full text links for the other diseases too. The perspective has in it short real life anecdotes on some value and ethic based dilemmas that doctors and especially we rheumatologists face.

The editorial team shall continue bringing out the monthly bulletin till March 2016 after which, it shall be quarterly (3 monthly).

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Regards

Editorial Team
IRA e-Newsletter