Journal of Inflammation Research

Advances in Rheumatic Diseases: Clinical Features, Comorbidities, and Current Perspectives

The Journal of Inflammation Research is pleased to welcome you to submit your research to the Article Collection "Advances in Rheumatic Diseases: Clinical Features, Comorbidities, and Current Perspectives".

Rheumatic diseases occur across a broad spectrum, all of which impact joints, bones, muscles, and other connective tissues. This provides an extra layer of complexity for physicians to treat patients with rheumatic diseases, as the clinical features, comorbidities, and systemic and extra-articular manifestations contain significant overlap.  Diagnosing and managing disease is an ever-evolving challenge, and new clinical observations, biomarkers, therapeutic approaches, and real-world evidence are changing the understanding and care of patients with rheumatic diseases.

This Article Collection addresses the importance of the interaction between rheumatology and other disciplines, as well as providing a platform for emerging areas in rheumatology, including immune-mediated complications associated with novel therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. By bringing together clinical, observational, translational, and outcome-based research, the Collection aims to highlight current challenges and new perspectives that may improve the recognition, assessment, and management of rheumatic diseases in everyday clinical practice.

This Collection “Advances in Rheumatic Diseases: Clinical Features, Comorbidities, and Current Perspectives” aims to bring together current research addressing the broad and evolving spectrum of rheumatic diseases. The Collection will focus on clinically relevant advances in inflammatory arthritis, connective tissue diseases, vasculitis, autoinflammatory disorders, and other immune-mediated rheumatic conditions. Particular interest will be given to studies exploring clinical phenotypes, systemic and extra-articular manifestations, comorbidities, diagnostic approaches, biomarkers, imaging, disease assessment, and factors influencing patient outcomes.

The Collection will also cover developments in pharmacological and non-pharmacological management, biologic and targeted therapies, treatment effectiveness and safety, and real-world evidence. Emerging clinical challenges will also be within its scope.

This also includes, but is not limited to:

• Rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory arthritides
• Axial spondyloarthritis and peripheral spondyloarthritis
• Psoriatic arthritis and its systemic manifestations
• Systemic lupus erythematosus and connective tissue diseases
• Sjögren’s disease and systemic manifestations
• Systemic sclerosis and related disorders
• Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies
• Systemic and organ-specific vasculitides
• Behçet’s disease and autoinflammatory diseases
• Familial Mediterranean fever and other periodic fever syndromes
• Clinical phenotypes and disease heterogeneity in rheumatic diseases
• Extra-articular and multisystem manifestations of rheumatic diseases
• Biomarkers and laboratory assessment in rheumatic diseases
• Advances in imaging and diagnostic approaches
• Disease activity, prognosis, and predictors of clinical outcomes
• Biologic and targeted synthetic therapies
• Conventional therapies and evolving treatment strategies
• Treatment effectiveness, safety, adverse events, and drug survival
• Difficult-to-treat and refractory rheumatic diseases
• Real-world evidence and long-term clinical outcomes
• Precision and personalized approaches in rheumatology
• Rheumatic manifestations and immune-related adverse events associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors
• Rheumatic complications of cancer therapies and other novel treatments
• Multimorbidity and multidisciplinary management
• Patient-reported outcomes, quality of life, and functional status
• Digital health, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies in rheumatology
• Epidemiology and healthcare burden of rheumatic diseases
• Early diagnosis, screening, prevention, and risk stratification
• Multidisciplinary and integrated care in rheumatology
• Neurological and neurosurgical complications of systemic rheumatic diseases
• CNS involvement in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases

Through this broad but clinically-focused scope, the Collection aims to encourage multidisciplinary research and provide practical insights into the diagnosis, assessment, management, and changing clinical landscape of rheumatic diseases.

Keywords: Axial spondyloarthritis; Rheumatic diseases; Inflammatory arthritides; Rheumatic complications; Biologic and targeted therapies 

Meet the Guest Advisors

Rıdvan Mercan, MD, Professor of Rheumatology, is a faculty member in the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine at Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University, Türkiye. He is the head of the department of rheumatology. His clinical and research interests cover a broad spectrum of rheumatic diseases, including inflammatory arthritis, spondyloarthritis, systemic autoimmune diseases, vasculitis, and comorbidities associated with rheumatic conditions. He has contributed to national and multicenter rheumatology studies, including real-world research and collaborative cohort studies. He is actively involved in the clinical education and supervision of six (6) rheumatology fellows.

Dilara Bulut Gökten, MD, is an Internal Medicine Specialist and Rheumatologist at Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University, Türkiye. Her clinical and research interests focus on spondyloarthritis, systemic autoimmune diseases, extra-articular manifestations, rheumatic complications of systemic therapies, and real-world outcomes of biologic and targeted treatments. She has authored or co-authored more than 50 national and international publications and is actively involved in clinical research and collaborative academic projects in rheumatology. Her work aims to improve the understanding and management of complex immune-mediated rheumatic diseases through clinically relevant research.