CLEVELAND — After more than a decade with no new medications for chronic spontaneous urticaria, clinicians are beginning to see rapid progress, according to a speaker at the Medical Dermatology Therapy Update IV.
FDA approvals of the biologic dupilumab (Dupixent, Sanofi and Regeneron) and twice-daily oral therapy remibrutinib (Rhapsido, Novartis) for chronic spontaneous urticaria in 2025 marked the first new options for patients since the landmark approval of omalizumab (Xolair, Genentech and Novartis) in 2014, according to James Fernandez, MD, PhD, vice chair of allergy and immunology at the

A novel neurotrophin-3 inhibitor significantly reduced pain and improved function vs. placebo for patients with knee osteoarthritis, according to results presented at the Osteoarthritis Research Society International World Congress.
LEVI-04 (Levicept) is a p75 neurotrophin receptor-Fc fusion protein that inhibits neurotrophin-3 to treat pain in patients with knee OA.
“Some OA therapies have shown statistical improvements in knee pain and function vs. placebo, but it is not always clear whether the improvement would be enough to be recognised as meaningful to patients and researchers,”

PHOENIX — ACL repair with internal brace augmentation may be associated with increased risk for reinjury among patients younger than 40 years and those with the presence of a pivot shift, according to results presented here.
“ACL repair should be reserved for a specific population,” Matthew C. Daggett, DO, MBA, of the Scientific Anterior Cruciate Ligament Network International Study Group, told Healio about results presented at the Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting. “We have to be strict on our criteria of when we do the ACL repair because we found an unacceptably high

ORLANDO — In U.S. hospital encounters for COPD, there was a rise in 30-day revisits in hospitals that underwent private equity acquisition, according to data presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference.
Additionally, in encounters for pneumonia, in-hospital mortality rose in these hospitals, according to researchers.
“Our findings add to growing concerns around the potential negative effects of private equity ownership in health care and highlight the need for stronger regulations of these acquisitions to help protect our patients,” Stephen Mein, MD, pulmonologist at

Nearly a quarter of patients who beat the high short-term mortality odds of alcohol-associated hepatitis returned to drinking within 90 days of recovery, according to study results published in Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research.
“We were surprised by how common early return to drinking was, even in patients who had just been hospitalized with serious illness,” Srinivasan Dasarathy, MD, a gastroenterologist at Cleveland Clinic, told Healio. “Doctors and care teams should not only focus on treating the liver disease, but also on preventing relapse to alcohol use. This means starting