More than 80 stakeholders from around the world recently finished development of the first-ever classification criteria for IgG4-related disease. Development of these proposed criteria was supported by the ACR and EULAR. This disease is becoming increasingly seen in rheumatology practices, and more clinicians are being called to diagnose and manage this disorder.
To help rheumatologists better understand IgG4-related disease, John H. Stone, MD, MPH, will present the drafted ACR/EULAR Classification Criteria for IgG4-Related Disease from 9:00 – 10:00 am Wednesday in Room W375b.
Dr. Stone, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of Clinical Rheumatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, said the session would review the validated classification criteria for IgG4-related disease, highlight the presentations of the disease that require targeted therapy, and outline an approach to diagnosis and treatment.
“This disease has really only been known since 2003,” said Dr. Stone. “I think it’s really remarkable how fast the understanding of this disease has progressed to allow us to have classification criteria already.”
Dr. Stone said clinicians from all medical subspecialties are seeing IgG4-related disease, but it’s particularly true for rheumatologists.
“IgG4-related disease is a multi-organ inflammatory disease, which is exactly the kind of disease that rheumatologists excel in treating,” he said. “We’re often called upon to solve these mysteries and then to manage these patients long-term, providing the kind of treatment that can be organ-saving and sometimes life-saving with these puzzling diseases.”
Dr. Stone’s presentation will help rheumatologists in their quests to solve IgG4-related disease mysteries for patients.
In addition to reviewing the proposed classification criteria, Dr. Stone will discuss how the criteria can be used as a tool for determining eligibility of patients for clinical trials. He will also discuss phenotypic clusters within IgG4-related disease identified using the classification criteria data set and will examine potential differences within IgG4-related disease in patients of Asian and non-Asian heritage.
“This is absolutely practical,” Dr. Stone said. “Providers will come away with a solid grounding of the clinical presentations of this disease. We will go through diagnosis and treatment. The goal is to give a thorough clinical overview of this fascinating disease and understand how the classification criteria fit into clinical assessment.”