Welcome to This Week in Rheumatology. This week we are covering eight notable papers spanning advances in spondyloarthritis diagnosis and tracking, the genetic and therapeutic landscapes of giant cell arteritis, and emerging tools to predict complications in systemic lupus erythematosus, autoinflammatory diseases, and pregnancy. Let us dive in.

This week's papers:

1. Instrument selection for the assessment of peripheral arthritis in axial and peripheral spondyloarthritis: an ASAS project — Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2026
2. A data-driven, weighted flare score that accurately predicts organ damage in systemic lupus erythematosus — Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2026
3. Enhancing diagnostic accuracy in axial spondyloarthritis through centralised clinical and imaging evaluation: results from a prospective multicentre project — Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2026
4. Glucocorticoid in giant cell arteritis: real-world treatment patterns over time and associated burden in a nationwide hospital-based study within the French health insurance database — RMD Open 2026
5. Evaluation of pregnancy outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis compared with the general population: results from a French national prospective and matched study — RMD Open 2026
6. Pediatric macrophage activation syndrome: clinical features and outcomes across diverse etiologies — Rheumatology (Oxford) 2026
7. Development and assessment of an assisted diagnosis model using machine learning for identifying adult-onset Still's disease in fever of unknown origin: a retrospective study in China — RMD Open 2026
8. Genetic biomarkers of clinical manifestations in giant cell arteritis define distinct patient subgroups — Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2026

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