Editor's note: July 1 - 5, RheumNow is running the best of EULAR 2019 meeting. Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) will decrease SLE flares improve lipids, decrease clots, improve survival, augment the response to mycophenolate and are the cornerstone of treatment as per the SLE EULAR gui

Editor's note: July 1 - 5, RheumNow is running the best of the EULAR 2019 meeting. Here are a few of the highlights from day 1 EULAR in Madrid, including another IL-23 inhibitor, BTK inhibition, abatacept in Sjogren's syndrome, don't repeat the ANA, and drug free remission in systemic JIA.

The July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reports that patients with psoriasis are frequent users of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) largely because of disatisfaction with traditional medications.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com.

JAMA reports that there is a trend of increasing mortality from falls in older US adults between 2000 to 2016 and that mortality rates are increased with increasing age. 

MMWR has published the outcomes from the Georgia Lupus Registry between 2002 and 2016, finding that black women were not only more likely to die from lupus than white lupus patients; but they died on average 13 years earlier (mean age 51.8 and 52.3 years, respectively) than whites (mean age 64.4 and 65.0 years, respectively).

Black women with lupus were 3.34 times more likely to die than black women in the general population, while white women with lupus were 2.43 times more likely to die than white women in the general population. None of the white women with lupus died within 5 years of diagnosis, while mortality was elevated for black women from the date of diagnosis on.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is encouraged by the Trump administration’s executive order to improve transparency of health care costs.

It is estimated that up to 50% of patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy will be complicated by interstitial lung disease, and having ILD may impart a poor prognosis. A recent review of the Johns Hopkins myositis-related ILD cohort has shown that azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil use is associated improved lung function and less prednisone use.

A small study looked at whether reducing the number of opioid tablets prescribed after knee surgery would reduce postoperative use and if preoperative opioid-use education would reduce it even more