Rheumatic Diseases: Diagnosis, Treatment and Management

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in the field of diagnostics of rheumatic diseases have been spurred by the development of increasingly accurate biomarkers that have helped revolutionize diagnostic accuracy and provided increased precision in targeted therapeutics. A biomarker is a defined characteristic that is measured and serves as an indicator of either normal biological or pathologic processes. At times, it may also serve as a response to therapeutic interventions. Implemented modalities may include cellular, genetic, imaging, metabolomic, physiologic, or serologic protein endpoints. While there are certain rheumatic disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, with well-established serologic markers like rheumatoid factors and cyclic citrullinated peptides that serve as indicators of the presence of a disease with a high degree of accuracy, there are other conditions, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, where the specificity of antinuclear antibodies is less accurate and, finally, conditions like fibromyalgia where accurate biomarkers are entirely lacking.

This Special Issue welcomes contributions covering current aspects of biomarker discovery for rheumatic diseases. Submissions may include articles of current original research, new experimental methodology, and/or review articles summarizing the current state of the art for clinical diagnosis particularly as it relates to the utilization of biomarkers, state-of-the-art treatment, and management of major rheumatic disorders. Discussion of current drawbacks to diagnostic accuracy and future directions for improved accuracy and management are welcome. I look forward to scrutinizing your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Kevin V. Hackshaw
Guest Editor

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diagnostics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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.