The Importance of Diagnosing and Predicting Rheumatic Diseases: Biomarkers, Indexes and Tools

Dear Colleagues,

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common systemic autoimmune disease with a prevalence of around 1% in the general population. Although the aetiopathogenesis of RA has not been fully elucidated, it is considered a complex disease in which the interaction between genetic, environmental and stochastic factors leads to a chronic infiltration of the synovial membrane by a variety of cells of the immune system, and, finally, radiographic progression and joint destruction.

During the last few years, solid evidence has confirmed the usefulness of early therapeutic intervention in the “window of opportunity”, with T2T strategies focused on achieving sustained remission, or at least low disease activity, leading to better outcomes. In order to offer patients tailored therapy to improve efficacy and reduce side effects, reliable and efficient prediction and prognosis biomarkers are needed, as well as severity indices. Along these lines, attempts have been made to generate predictive models that combine different biomarkers, although many environmental, molecular, genetic and epigenetic factors involved in the disease remain to be investigated. Additionally, the application of novel tools such as artificial intelligence or machine learning techniques could be useful to predict the response and safety of drugs used for the treatment of RA.

Finally, it should be noted that cardiovascular and pulmonary combabilities now constitute the main causes of mortality in RA. In this sense, the biomarkers under development to predict patients who are at risk of developing these comorbidities are of special interest, with the aim of anticipating their diagnosis and establishing early treatment. This Special Issue attempts to review the best predictive models of the evolution of the disease and provide tools to help the physician to make decisions about the best treatment for the patient.In this Special Issue, we will also address the importance of some biomarkers for the early detection of the main comorbidities associated with RA.

Dr. Nuria Montes
Dr. Santos Castaneda
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.