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DEXA Still Needed While on Bisphosphonates
Reuters reports that a study of 6629 Canadian women with osteoporosis taking bisphosphonates found that nearly one in five had a decrease in bone density while on medication. (Citation source: http://buff.ly/2afb7nj)
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ORBIT Study Shows Rituximab is Non-Inferior to TNF Inhibitors in Biologic Naive Patients
Porter and colleagues have reported that both rituximab (RTX) and tumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) are equally and highly effective in early, active, biologic-naive rheumatoid arthritis patients.
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Sandoz Etanercept Biosimilar Voted for Approval by FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee
The Food and Drug Administration’s Arthritis Advisory Committee (AAC) yesterday recommended that the Sandoz etanercept (Enbrel) biosimilar (GP-2015) be approved for use in the United States.
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Gut Microbiome Shapes Risk and Response in Rheumatoid Arthritis
In Genome Medicine, Mayo Clinic researchers investigated a cohort of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, their relatives and a healthy control group analyzing the gut microbiome vial16S ribosomal DNA analysis of fecal samples.
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Vagal Stimulation Improves Cytokine Production and Rheumatoid Disease Activity
PNAS has published a study wherein an inducible “inflammatory reflex” delivered by vagus nerve stimulation was shown to inhibit the production of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), an inflammatory molecule that is a major therapeutic target in an animal model of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
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Lupus Patients Genomically Stratified to Explain Treatment Responses
Systemic lupus is a clinically heterogeneous disorder, unified by requisite clinical features and exuberant humoral response to unknown triggers. While the diagnosis is easy, the disease course and management can be complicated and challenging.
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Patient Reluctance to Take Bisphosphonates
The NY Times reports that millions of Americans with osteoporosis are driven to stop or not take bisphosphonate therapies over the fear of exceedingly rare side effects - osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) and atypical femoral fractures (AFF).
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faSScinate Study Shows Tocilizumab to be Effective in Systemic Sclerosis
The results of the faSScinate trial were published in Lancet showing that treatment with Actemra (tocilizumab) resulted in a reduction in skin thickness and an improvement in lung function in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).
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10 Ways Rheumatoid Arthritis Could’ve Killed Glenn Frey
I was truly stunned when it was announced that Glenn Frey, from the Eagles, had died as a result of complications from his rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.
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Early DMARD Therapy Averts Cardiovascular Risk in RA
A Finnish early RA register studied 14,878 incident RA patients from 2000-2008 and identified 1157 deaths. Patients receiving DMARDs and MTX had lower mortality rates. The standardized mortality ratio for the entire cohort was reduced (0.57, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.62).
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Tocilizumab in Pregnancy
Tocilizumab is currently listed as a Category "C" pregnancy risk based on limited pre-clinical (animal) data that was negative.
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Cancer Risk Lower with TNF inhibitors in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Since the introduction of TNF inhibitors nearly 20 years ago, concerns over a potential associated cancer risk have abounded. The recent ACR RA treatment guidelines have addressed this recently, stating that patients with any solid tumor cancer or risk thereof should be treated as if they ha
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Biologics and Fatigue in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Researchers from Bristol, UK have published a Cochrane review studying the effects of biologic therapies on fatigue.
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Hyperuricemia Increases Risk of Diabetes, Death and CV Disorders in Hypertensive Patients
While hyperuricemia is linked to gout and many of the elements that make up the metabolic syndrome, it's not so clear that hyperuricemia is an independant risk factor for hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular outcomes, etc.
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Infection Risk Increased in Giant Cell Arteritis
French researchers recruited 486 patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) from over 40 centers throughout France, and compared their outcomes to age and sex matched individuals randomly selected from the general population. Both groups were followed for 5 years and assessed for the risk of serious infections.
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Predictors of Progression in Early Inflammatory Polyarthritis
A substantial, but unclear, percentage of patients presenting with new onset inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) will spontaneously remit, while others may persist and develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
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EULAR 2016 Drug Safety Report
The EULAR Annual European Congress of Rheumatology meeting was held in London from June 8-11, 2016 and was well attended by thousands. This year’s meeting had over 2,000 poster displays, and the EULAR 2016 Congress presented new recommendations on the management of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, and fibromyalgia.
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RheumNow Week in Review – 17 June 2016
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news, reports and highlights from EULAR and the last 2 weeks from RheumNow.com.
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European Registries Show No Melanoma Risk with Biologics
The combined analysis of 130,315 rheumatoid arthritis patients from 11 European registries did not reveal an association between invasive (malignant) melanoma and the use of biologic therapies.
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Arthritis and Suicide Linked with Childhood Adversities
Men and women with arthritis have nearly a two-fold higher prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts than those without arthritis, according to a recent study from the University of Toronto.
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