Since the millennium, we have seen an expansion in the number of advanced treatments both biologic and targeted synthetic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs for rheumatoid arthritis. The challenge remains on how best to characterise the subtypes of RA in order to choose the best drug to ensure optimal outcome for patients. 

Dr. Jack Cush reviews this past week's news and journal reports from RheumNow.com. Good news is that nearly 99% of adult rheumatology positions matched! But the challenge is that 45% of pediatric fellowship programs and 39% of pediatric rheum slots were unfilled in the 2024 NRMP match.

While adult rheumatology programs continue to have high match rates, pediatric rheumatology programs remain less popular.The National Residency Matching Program announced yesterday that the 2024 rheumatology fellowship match filled 97.6% (124/127) of programs, and 98.9% (273/276) of rheumatology fellowship positions. This is on par with last years (2023) adult rheumatology match wherein 97.8% (265/271) of the rheumatology fellow positions were filled.

The problem with having therapies that work is that you then have to figure out what to do with them. You cannot hide behind a shrug of the shoulders, or the ambiguity of therapeutic inadequacy. The question that follows the presence of a therapy is the question as to how to best use it.

GCA and PMR are at the stage in the growth of their therapeutic development where this problem is moving to the front of mind, and it made for a fitting topic in the ACR Great Debate. Drs. Rob Spiera and Phil Seo - two luminaries in the vasculitis and PMR worlds - were pitted head to head to discuss.

In this week's podcast, Dr. Jack Cush reviews the ACR Convergence 2023 meeting and proposes how to best learn at your next large medical meeting.

Drs. Jack Cush and Arthur Kavanaugh discuss highlights and key takeaways from ACR 23.

While there wasn’t much original new programming and research presented on the final day, that didn’t slow the RheumNow faculty from tweeting the noteworthy “Best of ACR” abstracts. Enjoy these below.

The last day at ACR23 was a ghost town as most left, largely because there was limited programming on the fourth and final day. The main attraction on Day 4 was the late-breaking abstract – oral presentations.  Here’s a list of the late breakers; below, I provide commentary on the ones that caught my attention.