Dr. Jack Cush reviews and discusses nearly a dozen news reports and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and Journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.

An analysis of a large population-based cohort of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) patients shows that comorbidities are common and are associated with higher disease activity and higher levels of functional impairment.

A longitudinal study of administrative data from British Columbia shows that nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) use increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among osteoarthritis (OA) patients.

Dr Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow: filgotinib rejection, delays in diagnosis, metformin benefits COVID, Abx and IBD, and UPA beats MTX.

In May, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) released the"2020 Guideline for the Management of Gout"reflecting new clinical evidence since the last guideline published in 2012.

Dr Jack Cush reviews the news, journal reports, twitter feed and COVID developments from the past week on RheumNow.com

 Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with abatacept (Orencia) had a lower risk of developing diabetes mellitus compared with those receiving certain tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors, a large cohort study suggested.

I think 2018 was the year that belonged to psoriatic arthritis (although some may argue in favor of immune conditions induced by Checkpoint inhibitors). Many years ago the late Professor Verna Wright in Leeds (UK) was a lone voice for many years describing the clinical subtypes of Psoriatic arthritis as something distinctive from rheumatoid arthritis. For a long time we thought that the treatments for PsA were just the same as RA since we were treating the same problem of synovitis.

The antidiabetic medication canagliflozin (Invokana) lowered serum urate and reduced the risk of gout flare in a post-hoc analysis of data from two large clinical trials.

Highlights from Tuesday and Wednesday (days 3 and 4) from the ACR annual meeting include: the important and impactful abstracts covered by the Rheumatology Roundup session; upadacitinib clinical trials; and the baricitinib CV and VTE safety analysis.

JAMA reports on a large Medicare cohort study showing that amongst patients undergoing total joint replacement (TJR), preoperative HbA1c testing was performed in 26% to 43% of patients with diabetes and in only 5% of those without diabetes. Importantly research has shown that an elevated HbA1c level is associated with postoperative complications.

Morbidly obese patients who lost 20 lbs before total knee arthroplasty (TKA) cut their hospital stays by about 1 day, and were 76% less likely to have an extended hospital stay, research showed. 

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome affects at least 2 million people in the United States and bears tremendous overlap with fibromyalgia - both being difficult to diagnosis because the symptom complex is often unrecognized and these conditions have no biomarker test. 

Dr. Jack Cush discusses the highlights from the past week on RheumNow.com:

Both Gout and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) comingle with a wide range of serious comorbidities. A matched retrospective cohort study from the UK Clinical Practice Research database shows those with OSA are at a higher risk of developing gout.