TY - JOUR T1 - Clinical course and outcome of COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic diseases: are all biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs alike? Response to: ‘Increased risk for severe COVID-19 in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases treated with rituximab’ by Schulze-Koops <em>et al</em> JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-218148 SP - annrheumdis-2020-218148 AU - Sara Monti AU - Carlomaurizio Montecucco Y1 - 2020/06/26 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2020/06/25/annrheumdis-2020-218148.abstract N2 - We appreciated the comment from Schulze-Koops et al 1 in response to our paper on the clinical course and outcome of COVID-19 in a cohort of patients treated with biological and targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (b/tsDMARDs).2 The authors stated that the message conveyed by our report or other similar observational data or clinical studies is potentially harmful for patients with rheumatic diseases who might think they are protected against complications of COVID-19 by their immunomodulatory drug. Nevertheless, in our publication, we clearly stated that our findings did not allow any conclusions on the overall outcome of immunocompromised patients affected by COVID-19 and that a high level of vigilance and strict follow-up should be maintained on these susceptible patients. Moreover, our findings … ER -