All News
Ironwood Featured Presentations
Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IRWD) today announced one oral and twelve poster presentations to be presented at the upcoming ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, California from November 3-8, 2017.
Read Article
CALM Study: Tight Control with Anti-TNF Wins in Crohn's Disease
Not unlike rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disorders, therapeutic efficacy in Crohn's disease (CD) is often assessed clinically. There is growing use and interest in biomarkers of intestinal inflammation, such as faecal calprotectin and C-reactive protein.
Read Article
NSAID and Opioid Adverse Event Reports from MedWatch
One-third of adults in the USA experience chronic pain and take prescription nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acetaminophen, or opioids.
Read Article
Tocilizumab Benefits Persist in SSc
Clinically meaningful improvements in systemic sclerosis among patients treated with subcutaneous tocilizumab (Actemra) persisted during the open-label phase of a multinational randomized phase II trial, researchers reported.
Read Article
New EULAR/ACR Classification Criteria for Adult and Juvenile Myositis
The European League Against Rheumatism and the American College of Rheumatology (EULAR/ACR) have developed classification criteria for idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) based on data from 976 IIM patients (74% adults; 26% children) and 624 non-IIM patients with mimicking conditions (82% ad
Read Article
CRIB Study Shows No Transplacental Transfer of Certolizumab
Mariette and colleagues have reported on the prospective pharmacokinetic study of placental transfer of certolizumab pegol (CZP) from pregnant women to their infants at the time of birith.
Read Article
CDC Endorses New Shingles Vaccine Over Zostavax
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on 25 October they endorsed the use of the new GSK shingles vaccine (Shingrix) over the currently available live-virus vaccine (Zostavax) from Merck.
Read Article
The Greatest Rheumatologist - Part II
Wow! I hope you read part I of yesterday's “Greatest Rheumatologist” article. So many big names and yet, other names and stories that were equally inspirational.
If you read the comments of the part I article you can clearly see several themes emerge.
Read Article
RABBIT Risk Scores are Higher in ICU-Admitted RA Patients
The German Rheumatoid Arthritis Biologics Registry (RABBIT) has developed an infectious risk calculator that can project a patient's risk of serious infection in the next 6 months based on several key factors - age, Prior DMARDs, prednisone dose, comorbidities and the biologic intended for use.&n
Read Article
The Greatest Rheumatologist - Part I
Who is the greatest rheumatologist? What makes for a great rheum? Is it clinical acumen, scientific achievement, educational prowess or years of unrivaled service or mentoring? Rheumatologists are quite opinionated on this subject and very nostalgic about their mentors and leaders. When I’ve posed this question in small groups, it’s plain to see how moved they become when discussing mentors or peers who influenced them. Thus, I posed this question to many of our leaders and mentors: who do you think of as the greatest rheumatologist?
Read Article
ICYMI: The Greatest Rheumatologist - Part I
Who is the greatest rheumatologist? What makes for a great rheum? Is it clinical acumen, scientific achievement, educational prowess or years of unrivaled service or mentoring? Rheumatologists are quite opinionated on this subject and very nostalgic about their mentors and leaders. When I’ve posed this question in small groups, it’s plain to see how moved they become when discussing mentors or peers who influenced them. Thus, I posed this question to many of our leaders and mentors: who do you think of as the greatest rheumatologist?
Read Article
Top 16 Drugs in Rheumatology 2016
Using data compiled from annual reports, SEC filings, press releases, company websites, recently released sales figures show that in 2016, 11 of the top 16 rheumatology drugs demonstrated blockbuster sales (>$1 billion per annum). Highlights from this report include:
Read Article
FDA Approves Simponi Aria for Psoriatic Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis
Janssen Biotech, Inc. has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved SIMPONI ARIA® (golimumab) the treatment of adults with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) or active ankylosing spondylitis (AS).
Read Article
The RheumNow Week in Review - 20 October 2017
The RheumNow Week in Review discusses the past week's news, journal articles and highlights from RheumNow.com. In this week's report, Dr. Jack Cush discusses presentations from APLAR 2017 in Dubai, Catastrophic APS, safety of low-dose prednisone, frequency of psoriatic arthritis and a new drug for PsA and a hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego.
Read Article
Tofacitinib Scores in TNF inhibitor Resistant Psoriatic Arthritis
Mease et al has reported in the NEJM the results of a phase 3 trial showing tofacitinib (Tofa) to be significantly more effective than placebo in active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients who previously failed to respond to tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) therapies.
Read Article
Rheumatologists are Slow to Change DMARDs
The paradigm of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) therapy mandates early diagnosis and aggressive treatment. Yet a recent cohort study has shown that RA patients with moderate to high disease activity (MHDAS) were met with infrequent DMARD adjustments; with median time to DMARD adjustment being 5 months and median time to low disease activity (LDAS) was roughly 10 months.
Read Article
Stelara FDA Approved for Use in Adolescent Psoriasis
Johnson & Johnson has announced that they have received an expanded FDA approval for the use of ustekinumab (Stelara) in treating adolescent patients, aged 12 and over, with moderate to severe plaque psoriais.
Read Article
High Drug Discontinuations and Nonadherence in Fibromyalgia
Compliance and adherence was shown to be quite poor in fibromyalgia (FM) patients, with high rates of drug discontinuation and greater than 60% demonstrated low adherence.
Read Article
Spinal X-ray Inhibition in Ankylosing Spondylitis Best Achieved by Control of Activity
Although tumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) are highly effective (on clinical grounds) in ankylosing spondylitis (AS), proof that they may alter the course of spinal radiographic progression has been scant.
Read Article
13 October 2017 The RheumNow Week in Review
The RheumNow Week in Review discusses the past week's news, journal articles and highlights from RheumNow.com. In this week's report, Dr. Jack Cush discusses a novel antiviral drug or the use of stem cell therapy for scleroderma, rituximab in HSP, when to withdraw NSAIDS in RA, and congrats to PAs and NPs!
Read Article