"As scholars of disease have noted, RA today appears to be a less severe disease than it was when I started my career in the 1970s. Then, patients routinely ‘went up in smoke’ and rapidly became crippled, wasting away in a state we called ‘burnt out’.

Lancet article on the increasing prevalence of gout shows a rate of 2.5% in the UK that has increased 67% in the last 15 years.

Pooled analyses of the tanezumab (a nerve growth factor inhibitor) phase 3 studies was presented at the 2015 Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) World Congress.

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 moratility ratio for the entire cohort was reduced (0.57, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.62).

HLA-B27 is found 6.1% of the US population, but with is seen in >90% patients with ankylosing spondylitis. HLA-B27 increases risk of spondylitis, uveitis and heart block. [Image credit: "HLA-B*2705" by Pdeitiker - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons]

May 10 was World Lupus Day.

According to the Federal Trade Commission biosimilars have the potential to save the U.S. healthcare system $250 billion through 2022.

Hepatic enzyme elevations with TNF inhibitor use is not uncommon.

The defining triad of Blau's syndrome includes granulomatous polyarthritis, dermatitis and uveitis.  This rare, monogenic, autosomal dominant disorder stems from a "gain in function" mutation of the pattern recognition receptor NOD2.

Nearly 20% Americans have chronic back pain, but 5-6% have inflammatory back pain. These numbers were derived from the 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that showed the USA prevalence of axial spondyloarthritis to be 1-1.4% and ankylosing spondylitis to be 0.5%.

Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston prospectively studied 107 RA patients with regard to oral medication (DMARDs, steroids) adherence. They report that adherence was low, ranging from 58-71% overall.

The risk of new H zoster infection was studied among nearly 30,000 new biologic starts and compared rates seen with abatacept, adalimumab, rituximab, infliximab, etanercept, tocilizumab, certolizumab or golimumab initiation.

A psoriasis population survey finds psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis in 1.4%-3.3% of North American and European households.  Many (27-53%) rated their disease as “severe”.

Drug Safety Bulletin: Drug Shortages

Patients in a large Swedish registry with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) who started a TNF inhibitor were followed for comedication use and TNF inhibitor survival.

Fibromyalgia is a highly prevalent disorder with different studies and populations showing a prevalence of 2.1% to 6.4% in the general population.  A retrospective review from Olmstead county revealed that among 1

A retrospective study of the national register in Sweden identified a total of 11,030 cases with an ankylosing spondylitis (AS) diagnosis (as of 2009) were identified in the National Patient Register, giving a point prevalence of 0.18% in 2009. Men had a higher prevalence of ankylo

Patients rate communication as one of the most important factors in choosing and sticking with a physician. The end product in at least 2/3 of visits is the prescription, yet prescription adherence is substandard in half of our patients. The key is communication.

In the mid-1990s, our Rheumatology Division at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School became involved with an early trial of a brand new TNF inhibitor.