Articles By Bella Mehta, MBBS, MS
Do biologics help taper steroids in Adult Still’s Disease?
A Japanese large scale claims data study was able to collect 5-year data to study the treatment patterns in Still’s. In May 2019, intravenous tocilizumab was approved in Japan for Still’s disease. The study was designed to see patterns of steroid exposure before and after the approval of this therapy.
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AOSD: complicated disease or a disease with complications?
Many clinicians may not have seen a case of AOSD during training, which overall leads to several delays in referrals and appropriate diagnosis for AOSD patients. AOSD is an autoinflammatory disease where innate immunity plays a primary role and is characterized by seemingly unprovoked inflammation, but without the high-titer autoantibodies or antigen specific T cells seen in autoimmune diseases.
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More severe COVID-19 outcomes in African American, Hispanic individuals with SLE
A study from ACR21 convergence discussing data from the Global Rheumatology Alliance (GRA) describes the association between race/ethnicity on COVID-19 outcomes specifically in lupus patients.
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Telemedicine Enriched Care Model for Autoinflammatory Diseases
Traditionally telemedicine is thought to be a technology where a patient directly talks to a provider or a specialist; however, another concept of having a patient with a local primary care who in turn accesses specialists via video conferencing, is gaining some momentum.
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JAK Inhibitors in Refractory Adult and Childhood-Onset Still’s Disease
Still's disease is an autoinflammatory disease characterized by spiking fever, rash, polyarthralgia, sore throat and even life-threatening complications, such as macrophage activation syndrome. It was first described by George Still in the late 1800s.
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Racial disparities in Bilateral Knee Arthroplasty in Osteoarthritis
Although arthritis-related activity, disabling work limitations, and severe pain (which are indications for TKA) disproportionately impact African American patients compared to White patients, there are marked racial disparities documented in utilization and complications in unilateral total knee arthroplasty.
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Decreasing immunogenicity, improving efficacy of pegloticase in gout
At #ACR20 three different medications are reviewed in different studies to decrease the immunogenicity of pegloticase – Methotrexate, Azathioprine and Mycophenolate Mofetil.
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