All News
Bimekizumab Safety in Psoriasis Patients
A pooled analyses of data from eight, phase 2 and 3 randomized clinical trials shows bimekizumab, a dual IL-17A/F inhibitor, to be effective in plaque psoriasis and was well tolerated aside from an increased incidence of mild to moderate oral candidiasis.
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Simultaneous Versus Staged Knee Arthoplasty?
Aside from cost, there are significant concerns regarding efficacy and safety outcomes and recovery time. These issues are compounded with the need for bilateral TKR, wherein the patient and surgeon need to decide whether to have both TKRs done simultaneously or staged (single TKR one after another with a recovery period in between).
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COVID-19 Death is Dependent on Age and Type I IFN Autoantibodies
A study in PNAS of has shown that autoantibodies against type I interferons (IFNs) are strong predictors of death from COVID-19.
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Does Sunlight Trigger Lupus?
Whether exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun can cause new-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) wasn't settled by data from a large, long-running epidemiologic study, but the trends indicated that it could.
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Modest Benefits of Diet on Arthritis
A EULAR taskforce systematically reviewd the literature on the effects of diet and lifestyle behaviors in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs), and found little evidence suggesting dietary factors can substantially affect the outcomes in people with RMDs.
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Burnout Threatens the Rheumatology Workforce Conundrum
There is a shortage of rheumatologists in Canada and the recent 2020 Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) Workforce and Wellness study shows that the shortage may be compounded by rheumatologist burnout, especially among young and female physicians.
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CC Genotype and Thiopurine Toxicity
Annals of Internal Medicine reports that thiopurine toxcicity risk is associated with the "CC" genotype and that azathioprine discontinuation was associated with hematopoietic toxicity and lower thiopurine doses.
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What Happened to Kawasaki Disease During COVID-19?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new COVID-related syndrome in children, the "Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children" (MIS), was described as being similar to but distinctly different than childhood Kawasaki's disease (KD). A new epidemiologic report shows that while MIS-C cases rose, KD cases fell and remained low during the period of masking and school closure.
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Two Week Twitter (6.17.2022)
Dr. Jack Cush does a 2-week review of RheumNow Tweets on news and journal citations worth noting, along with some opinions on Telehealth, manpower, monkeypox and the price of drugs.
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PsA UPLIFT survey: do rheumatologists and patients agree on treatment goals?
POS0309 at EULAR 2022 highlighted both similarities and differences between our patients and ourselves when it comes to PsA disease and treatment strategies.
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Not All RA Drug Classes Are Created Equal
Clear differences were apparent among the three major types of targeted medications for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in a large European registry study.
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Flares Not Increased Following Recombinant Zoster Vaccine Injections
Insurance claims analysis has shown that the use of the (CDC recommended) recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) for prevention of herpes zoster was highly used in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and was safe, as higher rates of arthritis flares were not evident.
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Spondyloarthritis and COVID-19
There are still questions surrounding COVID-19, and some common questions I receive from patients revolve around what to do with their current DMARDs or should they even start treatment during this pandemic. Two studies focused on this question.
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Improved Pregnancy Outcomes in SLE (2010–2020)
A retrospective cohort study has shown that outcomes in pregnant systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients has significantly improved in the last decade, but there still is a high risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes (APO).
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What do our lupus patients think about treat-to-target?
In SLE, two targets that are increasingly used are the DORIS 2021 Remission and the Lupus Low Disease Activity (LLDAS). T2T is more likely to be successful if the treating clinicians and the patients set the treatment goals together. What do our patients think about T2T and do they have any say/concern?
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Can we stop RA before it happens?
Rheumatologists have long hoped and wondered whether the right type of early intervention could prevent rheumatoid arthritis occurring in at-risk individuals.
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Gout Undertreatment Persists
Despite updated gout management guidelines from European (EULAR) and British (BSR) societies, treatment of gout is suboptimal with regard to the use of urate-lowering therapy (ULT) and normalizing serum uric acid (< 6.0 mg/dl) levels.
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Is Pain Control by Cannabis an Option?
An Annals of Internal Medicine review has shown that clinical trials and cohort studies of cannabinoids use for chronic pain may be associated with short-term improvements in chronic pain but come with an increased risk for dizziness and sedation.
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Time to consider gender stratification in AxSpA diagnosis and management
Differences across genders in many aspects related to rheumatic diseases diagnosis, phenotyping, trajectories definition and prediction of response to treatment have been overlooked.
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BSR Guideline for Psoriatic Arthritis - 2022 Update
The British Society of Rheumatology has published their updated 2022 recommendations for the use of biologics and targeted synthetic treatments in patients with psoriatic arthritis. These guidelines follow initial treatment with a single conventional systemic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug, typically methotrexate typically. They noted that up to 50% of people with PsA require biologic or targeted synthetic (b/ts)DMARD therapy.
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