August 2025

CAR T cell therapy efficacy and safety in SLE: A systematic review and pooled analysis of 47 patients across 10 studies

Doi: 10.1007/s00210-025-04425-z

Sayed OA et al. reported that CAR T cell therapy showed promise in refractory SLE, achieving durable remission with manageable toxicity; however further trials are needed to confirm long-term outcomes. Authors consolidated the current evidence on CAR T cell therapy in the treatment of SLE.

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Efficacy, pharmacokinetics and safety of iscalimab (CFZ533) in patients with proliferative lupus nephritis: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase II study

RMD Open 2025;11:e005557 Doi:10.1136/rmdopen-2025-005557

Shen N et al. report that iscalimab was clinically effective and generally well tolerated; in addition, it was devoid of the thromboembolic risk, characteristic of Fc active anti-CD40L therapies.

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July 2025

BCMA-targeted CAR T cell therapy can effectively induce disease remission in refractory lupus nephritis

Ann Rheum Dis 2025;0:1−9

Hu et al. report that anti-BCMA only CAR T cell can help LN patients safely and effectively, indicating its potential to be a feasible therapeutic strategy in treating autoimmune diseases with abnormal humoral immune responses.

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Effect of long-term voclosporin treatment on renal histology in patients with active lupus nephritis with repeat renal biopsies

Arthritis & Rheumatology 2025; 0:1–7 doi: 10.1002/art.43209

Exposure to voclosporin for a median of 18 months was not associated with onset or progression of nephrotoxicity based on evaluation of histologic compartments and vascular lesions. Rovin et al. characterised the impact of voclosporin on kidney histology in patients with LN who had protocolized repeat kidney biopsies in the AURORA clinical trials.

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June 2025

Deucravacitinib, an oral, selective, allosteric, tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor, in patients with active SLE: efficacy on patient-reported outcomes in a phase II randomised trial

Lupus Sci Med. 2025;12(1):e001517

Patient-reported outcomes from the deucravacitinib, 48-week, phase II, PAISLEY study show that patients with SLE experienced greater improvements in pain, fatigue and health-related quality-of-life scores at Week 48 with deucravacitinib versus placebo treatment.

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Enhancing systemic lupus erythematosus treatment outcomes with an early initiation of belimumab: insights from a multicenter retrospective study within the first five years

Arthritis Res Ther 2025;27(1):116

Highlighting the importance of early belimumab initiation in SLE, patients with shorter disease duration achieve more substantial improvements in disease activity with early belimumab treatment.

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2025 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Guideline for the Treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) Guideline Summary

https://rheumatology.org/lupus-guideline#2025-sle-guideline

The ACR have published their summary of the 2025 Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Guideline. This updated lupus guideline project is divided into two manuscripts that include renal published (link) and non renal recommendations that are available online in summary now, and the manuscript format due to follow in late 2025.

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May 2025

Outcomes of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus treated with belimumab: a post hoc efficacy analysis of five phase III clinical trials by British Isles Lupus Assessment Group-based Combined Lupus Assessment criteria

RMD Open 2025;11:e005-444 DOI:10.1136/rmdopen-2025-005444

Padrodis et al. aimed to determine belimumab efficacy assessed using BICLA in patients with SLE included in the phase III belimumab RCTs. The benefit of belimumab was found to be more prominent when combined with anti-malarial agents. Furthermore, using BICLA, the authors validated the results from foundational trials originally assessing belimumab efficacy using SLE Responder Index 4 thus, corroborating the efficacy of #belimumab in SLE.

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