Letter from the Editor

Dear colleagues,

Milan is a city that sets the blood racing with its “3Fs”, from fashion to Formula 1 racing to football. The football excitement was palpable in early June 2023 when the “Nerazzurri”, better known as Inter Milan, prepared to participate in the Champions League final. Alas, Inter lost, and the fans will be keen to forget and move on. Not so for the EULAR attendees, who congregated in the city between the 30th of May and the 3rd of June and were treated to a real fest of full-throttle clinical and translational Rheumatology with over 12,000 attendees at the MiCo Convention Center. The post-COVID crowd moving between various activities slowed movements from place to place, but a high quality of research activity will linger long in the collective minds.

In this report, we select a small fraction of the excellent abstracts to give a snapshot of new and emerging insights in Rheumatology, including data on the major inflammatory arthropathies and autoimmune connective tissue diseases. We also select studies concerning new therapy strategies in osteoarthritis and novel approaches to gout. We genuinely believe that the reader will find these topics of considerable value and interest and will be impressed with the research activity across a wide front in Rheumatology.

My impression was that the congress attendees were delighted to return to the pre-COVID format with lots of opportunities for direct interactions over the recent more restrictive contacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, this is now receding in the rear-view mirror as we accelerate away and take the scenic route across the Alps towards Vienna, where EULAR 2024 congress awaits.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dennis McGonagle

 

Biography

Dennis McGonagle, FRCPI, PhD, is an Academic Rheumatologist at the University of Leeds and section head of Experimental Rheumatology. He graduated in Medicine from the University College Dublin in 1990 and undertook postgraduate training in Dublin and Leeds where he completed his PhD. He has developed the modern enthesitis model for spondyloarthropathies and psoriatic arthritis including the cytokine mediated enthesis originating theory of disease (Lancet 1998). He also described the synovioentheseal complex, nail anchorage to the skeleton, developed an integrated biomechanical and immunology model for PsA, and a mechanistic disease classification of immune diseases (PLoS Med 2006). His group also discovered synovial fluid mesenchymal stem cells, which is being researched towards osteoarthritis therapy development. Prof. McGonagle has also served on the EULAR scientific committee and is a member of the Editorial Board of ARD.

 

Conflict of Interest

Prof. McGonagle has undertaken research and/or educational programme activities with Pfizer, MSD, AbbVie, BMS, UCB, Novartis, Celgene, and J&J.



Posted on 31 July, 202331 July, 2023