For children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, taking a weekend or summer break from methylphenidate may have some benefits. A drug “holiday” can help assess whether a drug is still useful and possibly help with drug tolerance, weight gain, and growth suppression. But drug holidays are not without their problems, Lily Hechtman, MD, FRCP, professor at the department of psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, said during a session at the World Congress on ADHD – Virtual Event.

Ceasing a medication can have repercussions from a health and social standpoint, cautioned Dr. Hechtman, a presenter and moderator of the session, “Unsolved mysteries in the treatment of ADHD with psychostimulants.”

The rate of drug holidays is somewhere between 30% and 40% in ADHD patients. Patients have multiple reasons for taking them, said Dr. Hechtman. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology as well as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommend this method to assess whether a medication is still necessary. Parents may opt for a drug holiday because most would prefer their children to take less medication.

A drug holiday can counteract some of the key side effects of stimulant medication such as decreased appetite and weight loss, and the moodiness and irritability that accompanies the medication, as well as sleep problems.

It may also be used to avoid drug tolerance, the need to increase dosage as medication continues. A 2002 study of 166 children and adolescents treated with methylphenidate revealed that 60% had developed drug tolerance. Drug tolerance increases with duration. “So, the longer the child is on medication, the more likely he or she will develop some drug tolerance,” said Dr. Hechtman.

It is hypothesized that a drug holiday results in the resensitization of the neurons in the brain because they aren’t exposed to the stimulation of dopamine release and dopamine exposure.

The minimum time a patient needs a drug holiday to deal with some drug tolerance is about a month. “Even if you have a drug holiday and your drug tolerance has been decreased, it can reoccur with increasing dosages, once medication resumes” after the holiday, said Dr. Hechtman.
 

The growth factor

A drug holiday can also address concerns about growth suppression. “Some studies show that drug holidays help with growth suppression and others do not,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The Multimodal Treatment of ADHD (MTA) study, which followed children with ADHD from childhood to adolescence into adulthood, offers some key insights on the effects of treatment on growth.

Over a 10-year period, “you could see that the rate of medication use decreased significantly with time” among participants, said Dr. Hechtman, a coauthor of the MTA research. Only 10% who began the study aged 7-9 years were still using stimulants 10 years later. Looking at short-term effects on growth among these children, those who never went on stimulants to begin with had no growth suppression at all, whereas those who underwent early and consistent treatment experienced the greatest growth suppression.

Comparatively, inconsistently medicated participants had less growth suppression than those who remained on medication. “They were pretty close to the controls,” said Dr. Hechtman.

These patterns continued in a 16-year follow-up, as these patients became adults. Based on the results in the inconsistently treated group, this suggests that drug holidays can limit the effects of growth suppression, at least to a certain extent, said Dr. Hechtman.

Other studies have yielded varying results on the impact of drug holidays on height and weight. “The evidence for the utility of drug holidays for medication side effects is there for decreased appetite and weight, but not so much for decreased height,” summarized Dr. Hechtman.

One recent study of 230 children by James Waxmonsky and colleagues that examined drug holidays on weekends and summers showed that drug holidays did increase weight but interestingly, not height. Older studies Dr. Hechtman cited had inconsistent results on height and weight gain and loss. A 2012 study suggested that drug holidays resulted in a slight improvement in appetite for both weekend and school holidays. But only 9% of the children in the sample (n = 51) saw their appetite return to normal levels.
 

‘Negative things can happen’

The downside of drug holidays is parents may rationalize that their child is doing fine without the medication, and discontinue it. The process of stopping and starting medication can lead to other problems. “Negative things can happen during drug holidays,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The large variability of doses over the weekend can result in rebound and side effects.

A child may go from a full dose, which could be 50-60 mg of stimulant to zero from Friday to Saturday. As a result they have a lot of rebound on that Saturday. Similarly, they go from zero on Sunday to full dose on the Monday, causing lots of side effects. “Also, they will never have a stable effective dose because of the roller-coaster effect of being on and off the drugs,” she noted.

The lack of consistency and accommodation to the side effects can lead to discontinuation of the medication.

Off medication, the child may be more accident prone or have more injuries. “Their behavior off the medication may be such that it leads to social problems,” Dr. Hechtman continued. Weekend activities that require medication such as homework or school projects, family or religious gatherings, or sports and social activities with family and peers may be affected. If the child is behaving poorly off the medication, they may be expelled from such activities. If it’s a summer drug holiday, they may get kicked out of camp or the swimming pool.

If the child’s condition is already worsening, and a drug holiday takes place on top of this, the child may experience a rebound or relapse, in which the condition looks a lot worse than it did with the drugs.
 

Do drug holidays matter?

Another session speaker, James Swanson, PhD, who noted that the “emergence of tolerance may limit and eventually undermine initial relative benefit” of stimulants, said there may be instances in which drug holidays may be impractical.

Given the poor adherence to ADHD medication, “most treated ADHD cases stop medication anyway and these patients do not have an opportunity for drug holidays,” he said in an interview.

“If tolerance does emerge, then for long-term treatment the concept of drug holiday seems difficult to evaluate to me,” said Dr. Swanson, director of the Child Development Center at the University of California, Irvine.

Planned medication breaks may not be a good way to evaluate efficacy unless it is performed under “double-blind” conditions, he offered. The MTA used an approach of switching between short periods of time, with and without medication. “We did this to compare medication to placebo and to compare doses of medication to optimize the short-term benefit,” said Dr. Swanson, a coauthor of the MTA study.

Dr. Hechtman receives funding from The Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Swanson has two patents: (PIXA4), which uses a “time-of-flight” camera to measure growth on infants, and a provisional patent on the mechanism of tolerance to stimulant medication (PATSMTA).

For children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, taking a weekend or summer break from methylphenidate may have some benefits. A drug “holiday” can help assess whether a drug is still useful and possibly help with drug tolerance, weight gain, and growth suppression. But drug holidays are not without their problems, Lily Hechtman, MD, FRCP, professor at the department of psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, said during a session at the World Congress on ADHD – Virtual Event.

Ceasing a medication can have repercussions from a health and social standpoint, cautioned Dr. Hechtman, a presenter and moderator of the session, “Unsolved mysteries in the treatment of ADHD with psychostimulants.”

The rate of drug holidays is somewhere between 30% and 40% in ADHD patients. Patients have multiple reasons for taking them, said Dr. Hechtman. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology as well as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommend this method to assess whether a medication is still necessary. Parents may opt for a drug holiday because most would prefer their children to take less medication.

A drug holiday can counteract some of the key side effects of stimulant medication such as decreased appetite and weight loss, and the moodiness and irritability that accompanies the medication, as well as sleep problems.

It may also be used to avoid drug tolerance, the need to increase dosage as medication continues. A 2002 study of 166 children and adolescents treated with methylphenidate revealed that 60% had developed drug tolerance. Drug tolerance increases with duration. “So, the longer the child is on medication, the more likely he or she will develop some drug tolerance,” said Dr. Hechtman.

It is hypothesized that a drug holiday results in the resensitization of the neurons in the brain because they aren’t exposed to the stimulation of dopamine release and dopamine exposure.

The minimum time a patient needs a drug holiday to deal with some drug tolerance is about a month. “Even if you have a drug holiday and your drug tolerance has been decreased, it can reoccur with increasing dosages, once medication resumes” after the holiday, said Dr. Hechtman.
 

The growth factor

A drug holiday can also address concerns about growth suppression. “Some studies show that drug holidays help with growth suppression and others do not,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The Multimodal Treatment of ADHD (MTA) study, which followed children with ADHD from childhood to adolescence into adulthood, offers some key insights on the effects of treatment on growth.

Over a 10-year period, “you could see that the rate of medication use decreased significantly with time” among participants, said Dr. Hechtman, a coauthor of the MTA research. Only 10% who began the study aged 7-9 years were still using stimulants 10 years later. Looking at short-term effects on growth among these children, those who never went on stimulants to begin with had no growth suppression at all, whereas those who underwent early and consistent treatment experienced the greatest growth suppression.

Comparatively, inconsistently medicated participants had less growth suppression than those who remained on medication. “They were pretty close to the controls,” said Dr. Hechtman.

These patterns continued in a 16-year follow-up, as these patients became adults. Based on the results in the inconsistently treated group, this suggests that drug holidays can limit the effects of growth suppression, at least to a certain extent, said Dr. Hechtman.

Other studies have yielded varying results on the impact of drug holidays on height and weight. “The evidence for the utility of drug holidays for medication side effects is there for decreased appetite and weight, but not so much for decreased height,” summarized Dr. Hechtman.

One recent study of 230 children by James Waxmonsky and colleagues that examined drug holidays on weekends and summers showed that drug holidays did increase weight but interestingly, not height. Older studies Dr. Hechtman cited had inconsistent results on height and weight gain and loss. A 2012 study suggested that drug holidays resulted in a slight improvement in appetite for both weekend and school holidays. But only 9% of the children in the sample (n = 51) saw their appetite return to normal levels.
 

‘Negative things can happen’

The downside of drug holidays is parents may rationalize that their child is doing fine without the medication, and discontinue it. The process of stopping and starting medication can lead to other problems. “Negative things can happen during drug holidays,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The large variability of doses over the weekend can result in rebound and side effects.

A child may go from a full dose, which could be 50-60 mg of stimulant to zero from Friday to Saturday. As a result they have a lot of rebound on that Saturday. Similarly, they go from zero on Sunday to full dose on the Monday, causing lots of side effects. “Also, they will never have a stable effective dose because of the roller-coaster effect of being on and off the drugs,” she noted.

The lack of consistency and accommodation to the side effects can lead to discontinuation of the medication.

Off medication, the child may be more accident prone or have more injuries. “Their behavior off the medication may be such that it leads to social problems,” Dr. Hechtman continued. Weekend activities that require medication such as homework or school projects, family or religious gatherings, or sports and social activities with family and peers may be affected. If the child is behaving poorly off the medication, they may be expelled from such activities. If it’s a summer drug holiday, they may get kicked out of camp or the swimming pool.

If the child’s condition is already worsening, and a drug holiday takes place on top of this, the child may experience a rebound or relapse, in which the condition looks a lot worse than it did with the drugs.
 

Do drug holidays matter?

Another session speaker, James Swanson, PhD, who noted that the “emergence of tolerance may limit and eventually undermine initial relative benefit” of stimulants, said there may be instances in which drug holidays may be impractical.

Given the poor adherence to ADHD medication, “most treated ADHD cases stop medication anyway and these patients do not have an opportunity for drug holidays,” he said in an interview.

“If tolerance does emerge, then for long-term treatment the concept of drug holiday seems difficult to evaluate to me,” said Dr. Swanson, director of the Child Development Center at the University of California, Irvine.

Planned medication breaks may not be a good way to evaluate efficacy unless it is performed under “double-blind” conditions, he offered. The MTA used an approach of switching between short periods of time, with and without medication. “We did this to compare medication to placebo and to compare doses of medication to optimize the short-term benefit,” said Dr. Swanson, a coauthor of the MTA study.

Dr. Hechtman receives funding from The Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Swanson has two patents: (PIXA4), which uses a “time-of-flight” camera to measure growth on infants, and a provisional patent on the mechanism of tolerance to stimulant medication (PATSMTA).

For children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, taking a weekend or summer break from methylphenidate may have some benefits. A drug “holiday” can help assess whether a drug is still useful and possibly help with drug tolerance, weight gain, and growth suppression. But drug holidays are not without their problems, Lily Hechtman, MD, FRCP, professor at the department of psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, said during a session at the World Congress on ADHD – Virtual Event.

Ceasing a medication can have repercussions from a health and social standpoint, cautioned Dr. Hechtman, a presenter and moderator of the session, “Unsolved mysteries in the treatment of ADHD with psychostimulants.”

The rate of drug holidays is somewhere between 30% and 40% in ADHD patients. Patients have multiple reasons for taking them, said Dr. Hechtman. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology as well as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommend this method to assess whether a medication is still necessary. Parents may opt for a drug holiday because most would prefer their children to take less medication.

A drug holiday can counteract some of the key side effects of stimulant medication such as decreased appetite and weight loss, and the moodiness and irritability that accompanies the medication, as well as sleep problems.

It may also be used to avoid drug tolerance, the need to increase dosage as medication continues. A 2002 study of 166 children and adolescents treated with methylphenidate revealed that 60% had developed drug tolerance. Drug tolerance increases with duration. “So, the longer the child is on medication, the more likely he or she will develop some drug tolerance,” said Dr. Hechtman.

It is hypothesized that a drug holiday results in the resensitization of the neurons in the brain because they aren’t exposed to the stimulation of dopamine release and dopamine exposure.

The minimum time a patient needs a drug holiday to deal with some drug tolerance is about a month. “Even if you have a drug holiday and your drug tolerance has been decreased, it can reoccur with increasing dosages, once medication resumes” after the holiday, said Dr. Hechtman.
 

The growth factor

A drug holiday can also address concerns about growth suppression. “Some studies show that drug holidays help with growth suppression and others do not,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The Multimodal Treatment of ADHD (MTA) study, which followed children with ADHD from childhood to adolescence into adulthood, offers some key insights on the effects of treatment on growth.

Over a 10-year period, “you could see that the rate of medication use decreased significantly with time” among participants, said Dr. Hechtman, a coauthor of the MTA research. Only 10% who began the study aged 7-9 years were still using stimulants 10 years later. Looking at short-term effects on growth among these children, those who never went on stimulants to begin with had no growth suppression at all, whereas those who underwent early and consistent treatment experienced the greatest growth suppression.

Comparatively, inconsistently medicated participants had less growth suppression than those who remained on medication. “They were pretty close to the controls,” said Dr. Hechtman.

These patterns continued in a 16-year follow-up, as these patients became adults. Based on the results in the inconsistently treated group, this suggests that drug holidays can limit the effects of growth suppression, at least to a certain extent, said Dr. Hechtman.

Other studies have yielded varying results on the impact of drug holidays on height and weight. “The evidence for the utility of drug holidays for medication side effects is there for decreased appetite and weight, but not so much for decreased height,” summarized Dr. Hechtman.

One recent study of 230 children by James Waxmonsky and colleagues that examined drug holidays on weekends and summers showed that drug holidays did increase weight but interestingly, not height. Older studies Dr. Hechtman cited had inconsistent results on height and weight gain and loss. A 2012 study suggested that drug holidays resulted in a slight improvement in appetite for both weekend and school holidays. But only 9% of the children in the sample (n = 51) saw their appetite return to normal levels.
 

‘Negative things can happen’

The downside of drug holidays is parents may rationalize that their child is doing fine without the medication, and discontinue it. The process of stopping and starting medication can lead to other problems. “Negative things can happen during drug holidays,” said Dr. Hechtman.

The large variability of doses over the weekend can result in rebound and side effects.

A child may go from a full dose, which could be 50-60 mg of stimulant to zero from Friday to Saturday. As a result they have a lot of rebound on that Saturday. Similarly, they go from zero on Sunday to full dose on the Monday, causing lots of side effects. “Also, they will never have a stable effective dose because of the roller-coaster effect of being on and off the drugs,” she noted.

The lack of consistency and accommodation to the side effects can lead to discontinuation of the medication.

Off medication, the child may be more accident prone or have more injuries. “Their behavior off the medication may be such that it leads to social problems,” Dr. Hechtman continued. Weekend activities that require medication such as homework or school projects, family or religious gatherings, or sports and social activities with family and peers may be affected. If the child is behaving poorly off the medication, they may be expelled from such activities. If it’s a summer drug holiday, they may get kicked out of camp or the swimming pool.

If the child’s condition is already worsening, and a drug holiday takes place on top of this, the child may experience a rebound or relapse, in which the condition looks a lot worse than it did with the drugs.
 

Do drug holidays matter?

Another session speaker, James Swanson, PhD, who noted that the “emergence of tolerance may limit and eventually undermine initial relative benefit” of stimulants, said there may be instances in which drug holidays may be impractical.

Given the poor adherence to ADHD medication, “most treated ADHD cases stop medication anyway and these patients do not have an opportunity for drug holidays,” he said in an interview.

“If tolerance does emerge, then for long-term treatment the concept of drug holiday seems difficult to evaluate to me,” said Dr. Swanson, director of the Child Development Center at the University of California, Irvine.

Planned medication breaks may not be a good way to evaluate efficacy unless it is performed under “double-blind” conditions, he offered. The MTA used an approach of switching between short periods of time, with and without medication. “We did this to compare medication to placebo and to compare doses of medication to optimize the short-term benefit,” said Dr. Swanson, a coauthor of the MTA study.

Dr. Hechtman receives funding from The Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Swanson has two patents: (PIXA4), which uses a “time-of-flight” camera to measure growth on infants, and a provisional patent on the mechanism of tolerance to stimulant medication (PATSMTA).

Six months after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in a representative health care workforce, no long-term cardiovascular sequelae were detected, compared with a matched SARS-CoV-2 seronegative group.

“Mild COVID-19 left no measurable cardiovascular impact on LV structure, function, scar burden, aortic stiffness, or serum biomarkers,” the researchers reported in an article published online May 8 in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.

“We provide societal reassurance and support for the position that screening in asymptomatic individuals following mild disease is not indicated,” first author George Joy, MBBS, University College London, said in presenting the results at EuroCMR, the annual CMR congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI).

Briefing comoderator Leyla Elif Sade, MD, University of Baskent, Ankara, Turkey, said, “This is the hot topic of our time because of obvious reasons and I think [this] study is quite important to avoid unnecessary further testing, surveillance testing, and to avoid a significant burden of health care costs.”
 

‘Alarming’ early data

Early cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies in patients recovered from mild COVID-19 were “alarming,” Dr. Joy said.

As previously reported, one study showed cardiac abnormalities after mild COVID-19 in up to 78% of patients, with evidence of ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%. The CMR findings correlated with elevations in troponin T by high-sensitivity assay (hs-TnT).

To investigate further, Dr. Joy and colleagues did a nested case-control study within the COVIDsortium, a prospective study of 731 health care workers from three London hospitals who underwent weekly symptom, polymerase chain reaction, and serology assessment over 4 months during the first wave of the pandemic.

A total of 157 (21.5%) participants seroconverted during the study period.

Six months after infection, 74 seropositive (median age, 39; 62% women) and 75 age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched seronegative controls underwent cardiovascular phenotyping (comprehensive phantom-calibrated CMR and blood biomarkers). The analysis was blinded, using objective artificial intelligence analytics when available.

The results showed no statistically significant differences between seropositive and seronegative participants in cardiac structure (left ventricular volumes, mass, atrial area), function (ejection fraction, global longitudinal shortening, aortic distensibility), tissue characterization (T1, T2, extracellular volume fraction mapping, late gadolinium enhancement) or biomarkers (troponin, N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide).

Cardiovascular abnormalities were no more common in seropositive than seronegative otherwise healthy health care workers 6 months post mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. Measured abnormalities were “evenly distributed between both groups,” Dr. Joy said.

Therefore, it’s “important to reassure patients with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection regarding its cardiovascular effects,” Dr. Joy and colleagues concluded.
 

Limitations and caveats

They caution, however, that the study provides insight only into the short- to medium-term sequelae of patients aged 18-69 with mild COVID-19 who did not require hospitalization and had low numbers of comorbidities.

The study does not address the cardiovascular effects after severe COVID-19 infection requiring hospitalization or in those with multiple comorbid conditions, they noted. It also does not prove that apparently mild SARS-CoV-2 never causes chronic myocarditis.

“The study design would not distinguish between people who had sustained completely healed myocarditis and pericarditis and those in whom the heart had never been affected,” the researchers noted.

They pointed to a recent cross-sectional study of athletes 1-month post mild COVID-19 that found significant pericardial involvement (late enhancement and/or pericardial effusion), although no baseline pre-COVID-19 imaging was performed. In the current study at 6 months post infection the pericardium was normal.

The coauthors of a linked editorial say this study provides “welcome, reassuring information that in healthy individuals who experience mild infection with COVID-19, persisting evidence of cardiovascular complications is very uncommon. The results do not support cardiovascular screening in individuals with mild or asymptomatic infection with COVID-19.”  

Colin Berry, PhD, and Kenneth Mangion, PhD, both from University of Glasgow, cautioned that the population is restricted to health care workers; therefore, the findings may not necessarily be generalized to a community population .

“Healthcare workers do not reflect the population of individuals most clinically affected by COVID-19 illness. The severity of acute COVID-19 infection is greatest in older individuals and those with preexisting health problems. Healthcare workers are not representative of the wider, unselected, at-risk, community population,” they pointed out.

Cardiovascular risk factors and concomitant health problems (heart and respiratory disease) may be more common in the community than in health care workers, and prior studies have highlighted their potential impact for disease pathogenesis in COVID-19.

Dr. Berry and Dr. Mangion also noted that women made up nearly two-thirds of the seropositive group. This may reflect a selection bias or may naturally reflect the fact that proportionately more women are asymptomatic or have milder forms of illness, whereas severe SARS-CoV-2 infection requiring hospitalization affects men to a greater degree.

COVIDsortium funding was donated by individuals, charitable trusts, and corporations including Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Citadel Securities, The Guy Foundation, GW Pharmaceuticals, Kusuma Trust, and Jagclif Charitable Trust, and enabled by Barts Charity with support from UCLH Charity. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Six months after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in a representative health care workforce, no long-term cardiovascular sequelae were detected, compared with a matched SARS-CoV-2 seronegative group.

“Mild COVID-19 left no measurable cardiovascular impact on LV structure, function, scar burden, aortic stiffness, or serum biomarkers,” the researchers reported in an article published online May 8 in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.

“We provide societal reassurance and support for the position that screening in asymptomatic individuals following mild disease is not indicated,” first author George Joy, MBBS, University College London, said in presenting the results at EuroCMR, the annual CMR congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI).

Briefing comoderator Leyla Elif Sade, MD, University of Baskent, Ankara, Turkey, said, “This is the hot topic of our time because of obvious reasons and I think [this] study is quite important to avoid unnecessary further testing, surveillance testing, and to avoid a significant burden of health care costs.”
 

‘Alarming’ early data

Early cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies in patients recovered from mild COVID-19 were “alarming,” Dr. Joy said.

As previously reported, one study showed cardiac abnormalities after mild COVID-19 in up to 78% of patients, with evidence of ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%. The CMR findings correlated with elevations in troponin T by high-sensitivity assay (hs-TnT).

To investigate further, Dr. Joy and colleagues did a nested case-control study within the COVIDsortium, a prospective study of 731 health care workers from three London hospitals who underwent weekly symptom, polymerase chain reaction, and serology assessment over 4 months during the first wave of the pandemic.

A total of 157 (21.5%) participants seroconverted during the study period.

Six months after infection, 74 seropositive (median age, 39; 62% women) and 75 age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched seronegative controls underwent cardiovascular phenotyping (comprehensive phantom-calibrated CMR and blood biomarkers). The analysis was blinded, using objective artificial intelligence analytics when available.

The results showed no statistically significant differences between seropositive and seronegative participants in cardiac structure (left ventricular volumes, mass, atrial area), function (ejection fraction, global longitudinal shortening, aortic distensibility), tissue characterization (T1, T2, extracellular volume fraction mapping, late gadolinium enhancement) or biomarkers (troponin, N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide).

Cardiovascular abnormalities were no more common in seropositive than seronegative otherwise healthy health care workers 6 months post mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. Measured abnormalities were “evenly distributed between both groups,” Dr. Joy said.

Therefore, it’s “important to reassure patients with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection regarding its cardiovascular effects,” Dr. Joy and colleagues concluded.
 

Limitations and caveats

They caution, however, that the study provides insight only into the short- to medium-term sequelae of patients aged 18-69 with mild COVID-19 who did not require hospitalization and had low numbers of comorbidities.

The study does not address the cardiovascular effects after severe COVID-19 infection requiring hospitalization or in those with multiple comorbid conditions, they noted. It also does not prove that apparently mild SARS-CoV-2 never causes chronic myocarditis.

“The study design would not distinguish between people who had sustained completely healed myocarditis and pericarditis and those in whom the heart had never been affected,” the researchers noted.

They pointed to a recent cross-sectional study of athletes 1-month post mild COVID-19 that found significant pericardial involvement (late enhancement and/or pericardial effusion), although no baseline pre-COVID-19 imaging was performed. In the current study at 6 months post infection the pericardium was normal.

The coauthors of a linked editorial say this study provides “welcome, reassuring information that in healthy individuals who experience mild infection with COVID-19, persisting evidence of cardiovascular complications is very uncommon. The results do not support cardiovascular screening in individuals with mild or asymptomatic infection with COVID-19.”  

Colin Berry, PhD, and Kenneth Mangion, PhD, both from University of Glasgow, cautioned that the population is restricted to health care workers; therefore, the findings may not necessarily be generalized to a community population .

“Healthcare workers do not reflect the population of individuals most clinically affected by COVID-19 illness. The severity of acute COVID-19 infection is greatest in older individuals and those with preexisting health problems. Healthcare workers are not representative of the wider, unselected, at-risk, community population,” they pointed out.

Cardiovascular risk factors and concomitant health problems (heart and respiratory disease) may be more common in the community than in health care workers, and prior studies have highlighted their potential impact for disease pathogenesis in COVID-19.

Dr. Berry and Dr. Mangion also noted that women made up nearly two-thirds of the seropositive group. This may reflect a selection bias or may naturally reflect the fact that proportionately more women are asymptomatic or have milder forms of illness, whereas severe SARS-CoV-2 infection requiring hospitalization affects men to a greater degree.

COVIDsortium funding was donated by individuals, charitable trusts, and corporations including Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Citadel Securities, The Guy Foundation, GW Pharmaceuticals, Kusuma Trust, and Jagclif Charitable Trust, and enabled by Barts Charity with support from UCLH Charity. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Six months after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in a representative health care workforce, no long-term cardiovascular sequelae were detected, compared with a matched SARS-CoV-2 seronegative group.

“Mild COVID-19 left no measurable cardiovascular impact on LV structure, function, scar burden, aortic stiffness, or serum biomarkers,” the researchers reported in an article published online May 8 in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.

“We provide societal reassurance and support for the position that screening in asymptomatic individuals following mild disease is not indicated,” first author George Joy, MBBS, University College London, said in presenting the results at EuroCMR, the annual CMR congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI).

Briefing comoderator Leyla Elif Sade, MD, University of Baskent, Ankara, Turkey, said, “This is the hot topic of our time because of obvious reasons and I think [this] study is quite important to avoid unnecessary further testing, surveillance testing, and to avoid a significant burden of health care costs.”
 

‘Alarming’ early data

Early cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies in patients recovered from mild COVID-19 were “alarming,” Dr. Joy said.

As previously reported, one study showed cardiac abnormalities after mild COVID-19 in up to 78% of patients, with evidence of ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%. The CMR findings correlated with elevations in troponin T by high-sensitivity assay (hs-TnT).

To investigate further, Dr. Joy and colleagues did a nested case-control study within the COVIDsortium, a prospective study of 731 health care workers from three London hospitals who underwent weekly symptom, polymerase chain reaction, and serology assessment over 4 months during the first wave of the pandemic.

A total of 157 (21.5%) participants seroconverted during the study period.

Six months after infection, 74 seropositive (median age, 39; 62% women) and 75 age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched seronegative controls underwent cardiovascular phenotyping (comprehensive phantom-calibrated CMR and blood biomarkers). The analysis was blinded, using objective artificial intelligence analytics when available.

The results showed no statistically significant differences between seropositive and seronegative participants in cardiac structure (left ventricular volumes, mass, atrial area), function (ejection fraction, global longitudinal shortening, aortic distensibility), tissue characterization (T1, T2, extracellular volume fraction mapping, late gadolinium enhancement) or biomarkers (troponin, N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide).

Cardiovascular abnormalities were no more common in seropositive than seronegative otherwise healthy health care workers 6 months post mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. Measured abnormalities were “evenly distributed between both groups,” Dr. Joy said.

Therefore, it’s “important to reassure patients with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection regarding its cardiovascular effects,” Dr. Joy and colleagues concluded.
 

Limitations and caveats

They caution, however, that the study provides insight only into the short- to medium-term sequelae of patients aged 18-69 with mild COVID-19 who did not require hospitalization and had low numbers of comorbidities.

The study does not address the cardiovascular effects after severe COVID-19 infection requiring hospitalization or in those with multiple comorbid conditions, they noted. It also does not prove that apparently mild SARS-CoV-2 never causes chronic myocarditis.

“The study design would not distinguish between people who had sustained completely healed myocarditis and pericarditis and those in whom the heart had never been affected,” the researchers noted.

They pointed to a recent cross-sectional study of athletes 1-month post mild COVID-19 that found significant pericardial involvement (late enhancement and/or pericardial effusion), although no baseline pre-COVID-19 imaging was performed. In the current study at 6 months post infection the pericardium was normal.

The coauthors of a linked editorial say this study provides “welcome, reassuring information that in healthy individuals who experience mild infection with COVID-19, persisting evidence of cardiovascular complications is very uncommon. The results do not support cardiovascular screening in individuals with mild or asymptomatic infection with COVID-19.”  

Colin Berry, PhD, and Kenneth Mangion, PhD, both from University of Glasgow, cautioned that the population is restricted to health care workers; therefore, the findings may not necessarily be generalized to a community population .

“Healthcare workers do not reflect the population of individuals most clinically affected by COVID-19 illness. The severity of acute COVID-19 infection is greatest in older individuals and those with preexisting health problems. Healthcare workers are not representative of the wider, unselected, at-risk, community population,” they pointed out.

Cardiovascular risk factors and concomitant health problems (heart and respiratory disease) may be more common in the community than in health care workers, and prior studies have highlighted their potential impact for disease pathogenesis in COVID-19.

Dr. Berry and Dr. Mangion also noted that women made up nearly two-thirds of the seropositive group. This may reflect a selection bias or may naturally reflect the fact that proportionately more women are asymptomatic or have milder forms of illness, whereas severe SARS-CoV-2 infection requiring hospitalization affects men to a greater degree.

COVIDsortium funding was donated by individuals, charitable trusts, and corporations including Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Citadel Securities, The Guy Foundation, GW Pharmaceuticals, Kusuma Trust, and Jagclif Charitable Trust, and enabled by Barts Charity with support from UCLH Charity. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Key clinical point: RA patients who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate reported an increased quality of life and reduced symptoms.

Major finding: The proportion of RA patients with symptom remission or low disease activity increased from 22.8% to 52.9% after changing from oral to subcutaneous delivery of methotrexate, combined with a dose increase in 34.8% of patients.

Study details: The data come from a prospective, observational study of 207 adults with RA who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate; 6.7% were in remission and 15.5% had low disease activity at baseline.

Disclosures: The study was supported by NORDIC Pharma. Several study coauthors disclosed relationships with NORDIC Pharma, and several are employees of NORDIC Pharma.

Source: Senbel E et al. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2021 Apr 14. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S301010.

Key clinical point: RA patients who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate reported an increased quality of life and reduced symptoms.

Major finding: The proportion of RA patients with symptom remission or low disease activity increased from 22.8% to 52.9% after changing from oral to subcutaneous delivery of methotrexate, combined with a dose increase in 34.8% of patients.

Study details: The data come from a prospective, observational study of 207 adults with RA who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate; 6.7% were in remission and 15.5% had low disease activity at baseline.

Disclosures: The study was supported by NORDIC Pharma. Several study coauthors disclosed relationships with NORDIC Pharma, and several are employees of NORDIC Pharma.

Source: Senbel E et al. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2021 Apr 14. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S301010.

Key clinical point: RA patients who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate reported an increased quality of life and reduced symptoms.

Major finding: The proportion of RA patients with symptom remission or low disease activity increased from 22.8% to 52.9% after changing from oral to subcutaneous delivery of methotrexate, combined with a dose increase in 34.8% of patients.

Study details: The data come from a prospective, observational study of 207 adults with RA who switched from oral to subcutaneous methotrexate; 6.7% were in remission and 15.5% had low disease activity at baseline.

Disclosures: The study was supported by NORDIC Pharma. Several study coauthors disclosed relationships with NORDIC Pharma, and several are employees of NORDIC Pharma.

Source: Senbel E et al. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2021 Apr 14. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S301010.

Key clinical point: Stimulation with IL-33 showed an increase in several mast cell lines in RA patients compared to controls, suggesting that inhibiting mast cells might be a therapeutic strategy to prevent joint deterioration in RA patients.

Major finding: Synovial tissues in RA patients showed more more c-kit- and FcεRI-positive mast cells, which are producers of both tryptase and chymase, compared to controls after stimulation with IL-33. In addition, IL-33-stimulated mast cells promoted more osteoclast differentiation than non-stimulated mast cells.

Study details: The data come from synovial fluid samples collected from 20 RA patients and 20 patients with osteoarthritis of knee joints who served as controls. 

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.  

Source: Kim K-W et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2021 Apr 21. doi: 10.1186/s13075-021-02491-1.

Key clinical point: Stimulation with IL-33 showed an increase in several mast cell lines in RA patients compared to controls, suggesting that inhibiting mast cells might be a therapeutic strategy to prevent joint deterioration in RA patients.

Major finding: Synovial tissues in RA patients showed more more c-kit- and FcεRI-positive mast cells, which are producers of both tryptase and chymase, compared to controls after stimulation with IL-33. In addition, IL-33-stimulated mast cells promoted more osteoclast differentiation than non-stimulated mast cells.

Study details: The data come from synovial fluid samples collected from 20 RA patients and 20 patients with osteoarthritis of knee joints who served as controls. 

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.  

Source: Kim K-W et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2021 Apr 21. doi: 10.1186/s13075-021-02491-1.

Key clinical point: Stimulation with IL-33 showed an increase in several mast cell lines in RA patients compared to controls, suggesting that inhibiting mast cells might be a therapeutic strategy to prevent joint deterioration in RA patients.

Major finding: Synovial tissues in RA patients showed more more c-kit- and FcεRI-positive mast cells, which are producers of both tryptase and chymase, compared to controls after stimulation with IL-33. In addition, IL-33-stimulated mast cells promoted more osteoclast differentiation than non-stimulated mast cells.

Study details: The data come from synovial fluid samples collected from 20 RA patients and 20 patients with osteoarthritis of knee joints who served as controls. 

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.  

Source: Kim K-W et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2021 Apr 21. doi: 10.1186/s13075-021-02491-1.

Key clinical point: In an analysis of blood-derived CD19+ B cells, miRNAs may have regulatory functions in RA patients treated with methotrexate.

Major finding: Differences in expression were noted for 27 microRNAs between methotrexate patients and controls, but no significant differences between newly diagnosed patients and controls. Some of the differentially expressed miRNAs were dysregulated in RA patients including miR-223-3p, miR-486-3p and miR-23a-3p. 

Study details: The data come from small RNA sequencing of 10 newly diagnosed untreated RA patients (n=10), 18 successfully methotrexate (MTX) treated RA patients in remission, and 9 healthy controls.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by Helse Sør-Øst Grants. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Heinicke F et al. Front Immunol. 2021 Apr 9. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.663736.

Key clinical point: In an analysis of blood-derived CD19+ B cells, miRNAs may have regulatory functions in RA patients treated with methotrexate.

Major finding: Differences in expression were noted for 27 microRNAs between methotrexate patients and controls, but no significant differences between newly diagnosed patients and controls. Some of the differentially expressed miRNAs were dysregulated in RA patients including miR-223-3p, miR-486-3p and miR-23a-3p. 

Study details: The data come from small RNA sequencing of 10 newly diagnosed untreated RA patients (n=10), 18 successfully methotrexate (MTX) treated RA patients in remission, and 9 healthy controls.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by Helse Sør-Øst Grants. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Heinicke F et al. Front Immunol. 2021 Apr 9. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.663736.

Key clinical point: In an analysis of blood-derived CD19+ B cells, miRNAs may have regulatory functions in RA patients treated with methotrexate.

Major finding: Differences in expression were noted for 27 microRNAs between methotrexate patients and controls, but no significant differences between newly diagnosed patients and controls. Some of the differentially expressed miRNAs were dysregulated in RA patients including miR-223-3p, miR-486-3p and miR-23a-3p. 

Study details: The data come from small RNA sequencing of 10 newly diagnosed untreated RA patients (n=10), 18 successfully methotrexate (MTX) treated RA patients in remission, and 9 healthy controls.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by Helse Sør-Øst Grants. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Heinicke F et al. Front Immunol. 2021 Apr 9. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.663736.

Key clinical point: Rheumatoid arthritis patients taking a combination of methotrexate and JAKi showed no increased risk of malignancy compared to RA patients on methotrexate alone.

Major finding: No significant differences in overall malignancy appeared between methotrexate /JAKi combination patients compared to methotrexate-only patients (risk ratio 1.42); no differences appeared between the groups for nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.44), malignancies excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.12), serious adverse events (RR 1.15), or deaths (RR 1.99).

Study details: The data come from a meta-analysis of 13 randomized, controlled trials with a total of 6,911 RA patients who received methotrexate and Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) 

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Solipuram V et al. Auto Immune Highlights. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1186/s13317-021-00153-5.

Key clinical point: Rheumatoid arthritis patients taking a combination of methotrexate and JAKi showed no increased risk of malignancy compared to RA patients on methotrexate alone.

Major finding: No significant differences in overall malignancy appeared between methotrexate /JAKi combination patients compared to methotrexate-only patients (risk ratio 1.42); no differences appeared between the groups for nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.44), malignancies excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.12), serious adverse events (RR 1.15), or deaths (RR 1.99).

Study details: The data come from a meta-analysis of 13 randomized, controlled trials with a total of 6,911 RA patients who received methotrexate and Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) 

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Solipuram V et al. Auto Immune Highlights. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1186/s13317-021-00153-5.

Key clinical point: Rheumatoid arthritis patients taking a combination of methotrexate and JAKi showed no increased risk of malignancy compared to RA patients on methotrexate alone.

Major finding: No significant differences in overall malignancy appeared between methotrexate /JAKi combination patients compared to methotrexate-only patients (risk ratio 1.42); no differences appeared between the groups for nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.44), malignancies excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR 1.12), serious adverse events (RR 1.15), or deaths (RR 1.99).

Study details: The data come from a meta-analysis of 13 randomized, controlled trials with a total of 6,911 RA patients who received methotrexate and Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) 

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Solipuram V et al. Auto Immune Highlights. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1186/s13317-021-00153-5.

Key clinical point: Current smoking was an independent predictor of inadequate response to methotrexate in treatment-naïve rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Major finding: Inadequate response to methotrexate, demonstrated by failure to achieve low disease activity, was significantly associated with current smoking (adjusted odds ratio 1.79). Lack of EULAR response also was significantly associated with current smoking (aOR 2.04).

Study details: The data come from a retrospective cohort study of 294 rheumatoid arthritis patients (60.5% women) who were naïve to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.  

Disclosures: The study was supported by an unconditioned research grant from Pfizer. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Floris A et al. Medicine. 2021 Apr 30. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000025481.

Key clinical point: Current smoking was an independent predictor of inadequate response to methotrexate in treatment-naïve rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Major finding: Inadequate response to methotrexate, demonstrated by failure to achieve low disease activity, was significantly associated with current smoking (adjusted odds ratio 1.79). Lack of EULAR response also was significantly associated with current smoking (aOR 2.04).

Study details: The data come from a retrospective cohort study of 294 rheumatoid arthritis patients (60.5% women) who were naïve to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.  

Disclosures: The study was supported by an unconditioned research grant from Pfizer. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Floris A et al. Medicine. 2021 Apr 30. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000025481.

Key clinical point: Current smoking was an independent predictor of inadequate response to methotrexate in treatment-naïve rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Major finding: Inadequate response to methotrexate, demonstrated by failure to achieve low disease activity, was significantly associated with current smoking (adjusted odds ratio 1.79). Lack of EULAR response also was significantly associated with current smoking (aOR 2.04).

Study details: The data come from a retrospective cohort study of 294 rheumatoid arthritis patients (60.5% women) who were naïve to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.  

Disclosures: The study was supported by an unconditioned research grant from Pfizer. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Floris A et al. Medicine. 2021 Apr 30. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000025481.

Key clinical point: Diagnostic delay was an independent predictor of mortality in RA patients with interstitial lung disease in a multivariate analysis.

Major finding: Diagnostic delay was significantly associated with increased risk of mortality in adults with RA and interstitial lung disease (hazard ratio 1.11), along with age, severe oxygen desaturation on effort (SatO2) and diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO); with hazard ratios of 1.33, 0.85, and 0.62, respectively.   

Study details: The data come from a multicenter study of 106 consecutive adults with rheumatoid arthritis and interstitial lung disease.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Cano-Jiménez E et al. Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-88734-2.

Key clinical point: Diagnostic delay was an independent predictor of mortality in RA patients with interstitial lung disease in a multivariate analysis.

Major finding: Diagnostic delay was significantly associated with increased risk of mortality in adults with RA and interstitial lung disease (hazard ratio 1.11), along with age, severe oxygen desaturation on effort (SatO2) and diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO); with hazard ratios of 1.33, 0.85, and 0.62, respectively.   

Study details: The data come from a multicenter study of 106 consecutive adults with rheumatoid arthritis and interstitial lung disease.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Cano-Jiménez E et al. Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-88734-2.

Key clinical point: Diagnostic delay was an independent predictor of mortality in RA patients with interstitial lung disease in a multivariate analysis.

Major finding: Diagnostic delay was significantly associated with increased risk of mortality in adults with RA and interstitial lung disease (hazard ratio 1.11), along with age, severe oxygen desaturation on effort (SatO2) and diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO); with hazard ratios of 1.33, 0.85, and 0.62, respectively.   

Study details: The data come from a multicenter study of 106 consecutive adults with rheumatoid arthritis and interstitial lung disease.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Cano-Jiménez E et al. Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 28. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-88734-2.

Key clinical point: Rheumatic immune-related adverse events occurred in approximately one-third of cancer patients on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy.

Major finding: A total of 37.3% of patients on ICI therapy experienced at least one immune-related adverse event; 4.3% of patients experienced at least one rheumatic immune-related adverse event (rh-irAEs) and 3 of these patients had pre-existing rheumatic disease.

Study details: The data come from 437 adult cancer patients who were treated with ipilimumab and/or nivolumab, or pembrolizumab at a single center between January 2014 and December 2018.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Verspohl SH et al. Ther Adv Musculoskelet Dis. 2021 Apr 12. doi: 10.1177/1759720X211006963.

Key clinical point: Rheumatic immune-related adverse events occurred in approximately one-third of cancer patients on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy.

Major finding: A total of 37.3% of patients on ICI therapy experienced at least one immune-related adverse event; 4.3% of patients experienced at least one rheumatic immune-related adverse event (rh-irAEs) and 3 of these patients had pre-existing rheumatic disease.

Study details: The data come from 437 adult cancer patients who were treated with ipilimumab and/or nivolumab, or pembrolizumab at a single center between January 2014 and December 2018.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Verspohl SH et al. Ther Adv Musculoskelet Dis. 2021 Apr 12. doi: 10.1177/1759720X211006963.

Key clinical point: Rheumatic immune-related adverse events occurred in approximately one-third of cancer patients on immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy.

Major finding: A total of 37.3% of patients on ICI therapy experienced at least one immune-related adverse event; 4.3% of patients experienced at least one rheumatic immune-related adverse event (rh-irAEs) and 3 of these patients had pre-existing rheumatic disease.

Study details: The data come from 437 adult cancer patients who were treated with ipilimumab and/or nivolumab, or pembrolizumab at a single center between January 2014 and December 2018.

Disclosures: The study received no outside funding. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Verspohl SH et al. Ther Adv Musculoskelet Dis. 2021 Apr 12. doi: 10.1177/1759720X211006963.

Key clinical point: The Internet-based Worry and Sadness program improved mental health in adults with rheumatoid arthritis over 3 months.

Major finding: At 3 months’ follow-up, measures of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress  improved significantly from baseline with effect sizes ranging from small to large; 44% of participants had normal scores for anxiety (medium effect size).

Study details: The data come from 28 adults (mean age 57 years, 86% women) with rheumatoid arthritis who completed an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by a University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship and The Arthritis Society 2016 PhD Salary Award to lead author Dr. Blaney, and by the CIHR Chronic Pain SPOR Network and Health Sciences Centre. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Blaney C et al. Internet Interv. 2021 Mar 26. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2021.100385.

Key clinical point: The Internet-based Worry and Sadness program improved mental health in adults with rheumatoid arthritis over 3 months.

Major finding: At 3 months’ follow-up, measures of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress  improved significantly from baseline with effect sizes ranging from small to large; 44% of participants had normal scores for anxiety (medium effect size).

Study details: The data come from 28 adults (mean age 57 years, 86% women) with rheumatoid arthritis who completed an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by a University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship and The Arthritis Society 2016 PhD Salary Award to lead author Dr. Blaney, and by the CIHR Chronic Pain SPOR Network and Health Sciences Centre. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Blaney C et al. Internet Interv. 2021 Mar 26. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2021.100385.

Key clinical point: The Internet-based Worry and Sadness program improved mental health in adults with rheumatoid arthritis over 3 months.

Major finding: At 3 months’ follow-up, measures of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress  improved significantly from baseline with effect sizes ranging from small to large; 44% of participants had normal scores for anxiety (medium effect size).

Study details: The data come from 28 adults (mean age 57 years, 86% women) with rheumatoid arthritis who completed an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention.

Disclosures: The study was supported in part by a University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship and The Arthritis Society 2016 PhD Salary Award to lead author Dr. Blaney, and by the CIHR Chronic Pain SPOR Network and Health Sciences Centre. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.

Source: Blaney C et al. Internet Interv. 2021 Mar 26. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2021.100385.