In the 1980s, as consumer concern regarding silicone breast implant safety grew, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new surveillance system began to identify local complications associated with silicone implants in addition to several published case reports that described an association between cancer and connective tissue disorders in patients with these devices.

The Pregnancy and Lactation Autoimmune Network (PLAN) registry was established to evaluate the concerns of women with autoimmune or inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIRD) pertaining to pregnancy and lactation

Giant-cell arteritis (GCA) is the most frequent form of vasculitis in patients over the age of 50. Large- and medium-sized vessels are mainly affected, especially the cranial branches of the external carotid. The aorta and its branches are also involved in 30 to 60% of patients.

Unprecedented successes regarding cancer immunotherapy have been achieved, in which therapeutic agents are used to targeting immune cells rather than cancer cells.

Prolactin (PRL) elevation in patients with prolactin-secreting pituitary tumors has been linked to an increased prevalence of thyroid autoantibodies. However, the effects of antipsychotic drug-induced hyperprolactinemia (HPRL) on the development of thyroid autoimmunity and also of other autoimmune phenomena have not been previously studied.

A growing number of studies have investigated the malignancy risk associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and our review will focus mainly (though not exclusively) on studies published in the past year.

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) are a heterogeneous group of systemic autoimmune diseases (collectively referred to as myositis), which mainly include the subtypes of polymyositis, dermatomyositis, immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM) and sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM).

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease that results in increased morbidity and mortality. Under certain conditions, patients with SLE may be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) secondary to infectious disease flare-ups or other non-SLE disease conditions that are aggravated by SLE.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a multifactorial and poorly undersood disabling disease. We present epidemiological, clinical and experimental evidence that ME/CFS constitutes a major type of adverse effect of vaccines, especially those containing poorly degradable particulate aluminum adjuvants.

Autoinflammatory diseases were recently defined by an international consortium of experts of autoinflammatory diseases as: “clinical disorders caused by defect(s) or dysregulation of the innate immune system, characterized by recurrent or continuous inflammation (elevated acute phase reactants-APR) and the lack of a primary pathogenic role for the adaptive immune system.”