Guselkumab Tops Adalimumab in Psoriasis Trial

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NEJM reports a 52 week, phase II trial in 293 adult patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis (>10 BSA) who were randomized to receive either placebo, adalimumab or guselkumab - a novel IL-23 inhibitor.

Safety of Colchicine in End Stage Renal Disease

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Colchicine toxicity has been linked to renal function and it has generally been advised to adjust colchicine dosing in patients with renal insufficiency.

Brodalumab Backlash

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On May 26, RheumNow.com reported that Amgen and Astra-Zenica suspended drug development for the IL-17 inhibitor brodalumab.

Neurologic Events with TNF Inhibitor Therapy

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Demyelinating disorders are an uncommon complication of TNF inhibition and have been described with all TNF inhibitors but also with other biologics. 

Get Ready for ICD-10

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With three months until the switch from ICD-9 to ICD-10 coding, CMS and the AMA have announced efforts to continue to help physicians get ready ahead of the October 1 deadline.

Rheumatology Leads the List in Drug Company Engagements

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Based on recently released data, ProPublica.org has compiled a list of pharmaceutical payments made to 606,000 US physicians in the last year. Their analysis turned up big differences between the different specialties.

What's Your Diagnosis? Hand Arthritis in 57 year old Man

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A 57 year old male is referred for arthritis of the hands for the last 8 years. He complains of pain, swelling, stiffness in the fingers only. He denies rash, bowel, urologic or ocular complaints. Over-the-counter NSAIDs have provided only partial relief.  

Troponin and BNP in the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Hypertension

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Common cardiac biomarkers could be used to identify patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) at risk for developing pulmonary hypertension, French researchers reported.

Limited Counseling for Increased Sodium Intake in the U.S.

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Increased sodium intake has been shown to increase Th17 cell activity, and in animal models high-salt diets have been shown to drive IL-23-dependent TH17 cells to cause experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (citation source (http://url.ie/z238). I

Adalimumab Drug Levels Predict Efficacy

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In a prospective study of 311 rheumatoid arthritis patients starting either adalimumab (ADA) or etanercept, investigators sought to correlate drug levels and/or anti-drug antibodies with clinical outcomes (citation source http://url.ie/z237).

Half of US Women are Overweight during Pregnancy

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Obesity is associated with adverse outcomes in pregnancy, especially with higher rates of infertility and miscarriage. 

The Unproven Use of Stem Cell Therapy in OA of the Knee

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Regenerative medicine and the use of bone marrow stromal cells (or mesenchymal stem cells - MSC) is controversial in many areas of medicine, including osteoarthritis. MSC use is at a very early stage in orthopedic research, but has been investigated in osteoarthritis of the kn

Obesity Drives Rheumatoid Arthritis

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Systematic review of the literature examined whether obesity is associated with a higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis (citation source http://url.ie/z1y6) and found that obese individuals (BMI > 30) are at 

TNF inhibitors in Early Axial SpA Spares NSAID Use

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In a 2 year follow-up of the DESIR cohort of patients with early inflammatory back pain (627 patients), TNF inhibitor use was associated with a significantly greater decrease in the median NSAID intake (from 54.9 to 1.9 in TNFi pts versus from 41.9 to 22.3 in non-TNFi pts, p0.05).

Ustekinumab Efficacy in Psoriatic Arthritis: 2 Year SUMMIT Trial Results

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615 adults with active PsA were randomized to ustekinumab (45mg group or 90mg group) or placebo with crossover at 24 weeks.

Ustekinumab Bests TNF Inhibitors for Biologic Survival in Psoriasis

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Using drug survival as a global measure of a drug's effectiveness, safety and tolerability, UK investigators used a national pharmacovigilance cohort (British Association of Dermatologists Biologic Interventions Register) to compare survival rates of the first biologic used in 3,523 biologic-naiv

Utility of Drug Levels and Anti-Drug Antibodies When Starting TNF inhibitors

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A prospective cohort of 331 patients tested for anti-adalimumab (n=160) and anti-etanercept (n-171) antibodies after initiation of their TNF inhibitor therapy.

FUTURE 2 Trial Shows Secukinumab to be Effective in Psoriatic Arthritis

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Lancet today published the results of the phase 3, prospecitive, multinational, double-blind, randomized controlled trial of secukinumab (an anti-IL-17A monoclonal antibody) in active psoriatic arthritis.

Microscopic Polyangiitis Associated with Pulmonary Fibrosis

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Fresolimumab (anti-TGF beta) Improves Systemic Sclerosis

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Transforming growth factor (TGF-β) is known to have potent profibrotic activity and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of systemic sclerosis a futile condition with no effective disease modifying treatments.