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C5orf30 Gene is a Negative Regulator of Tissue Damage in Rheumatoid Arthritis
PNAS has reported the work of an international team of scientists from the University College Dublin and the University of Sheffield, who have studied DNA samples and biopsy samples from joints of over 1,000 rheumatoid arthritis patients in the UK and Ireland and determined the C5orf30 gene to be
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DSB: Drug Shortages August 2015
RheumNow is committed to reporting safety issues in our monthly Drug Safety Bulletins. Each month we will update you with reports of new, ongoing and resolved Drug Shortages that will affect the practicing rheumatologist.
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Early RA and the Chance of DMARD-Free Remission
Early and aggressive treatment of rheumatoid arthritis has become the mantra for most who manage the disease and hope to achieve optimal outcomes - including remission.
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Colon Cancer Risk Cut by Aspirin and NSAIDs
A population-based study from Northern Denmark studied the effects of aspirin and NSAIDs on colorectal cancer rates (Citation source http://buff.ly/1KJQ6H3).
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Secukinumab Bests Ustekinumab in Psoriasis CLEAR Study
The CLEAR study was a one-year, randomized, double-blind trial compared subcutaneous standard doses of secukinumab (anti-IL17) and ustekinumab (anti-IL12/23) in patients with moderate-severe plaque psoriasis.
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Amgen Agrees to $71 Million Settlement over Enbrel & Aranesp Promotion
Based on potentiallly off-label promotion of blockbuster drugs Aranesp and Enbrel, Amgen has agreed to a $71 million settlement with 48 states and the District of Columbia.
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Serious Infections are Increasing in Lupus
Tektonidou and coworkers have analyzed hospitalized serious infections (SIE) involving lupus patients over a 15 year period and show that SIE in SLE have increased substantially between 1996 and 2011, and in 2011 are 12 times higher than seen in patients without SLE.
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Poor Compliance in SLE Leads to More ER Visits and Hospitalizations
Feldman and coworkers have analyzed US Medicaid claims data from 9,600 hydroxychloroquine and 3,829 new immunosuppressive new users with a diagnosis of SLE.
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Thalamic Currents Underlie Sleep Problems in Fibromyalgia
Sleep disruption is a core feature of fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia exhibit sleep brain wave patterns often disrupted by brain waves that correspond to wakefulness.
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Cancer Risk Is Both Increased and Decreased in RA
Rheumatoid arthritis patients are often said to have no or a low risk of cancer.
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Patients Unaware that Smoking Worsens IBD
Smoking is a well-known inciting or exacerbating factor in many inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
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Long-Term Safety of Rituximab
Rituximab has been used for years with good efficacy, but with several safety concerns. Van Vollenhoven and colleagues have published the cumulative clinical trial safety experience of RTX wherein 3595 patients 1–20 (average - 4) courses over 11 years [14,816 patient-years (PY)].
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Rheumatologists are Not Always Aligned with 2012 ACR Gout Guidelines
A cross-sectional survey of 309 Brazilan rheumatologists was performed to assess their compliance with the 2012 ACR guidelines on gout.
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NSAIDs and the Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Your patient with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis has a musculoskeletal problem that needs treatment. You consider a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, but are reminded that “NSAIDs are to be avoided as these drugs will worsen inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)”.
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Osteoarthritis Update August 2015
Different Phenotypes for Osteoarthritis of the Foot. Osteoarthritis is often characterized as either a symmetric polyarticular (often involving DIPs, PIPs and CMC1), asymmetric oligoarticular or monarticular (knee or hip OA), but OA may also affect the foot.
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DSB: Managing Methotrexate Toxicity
Methotrexate was first introduced in 1955 for leukemia and in 1986 became FDA approved for the treatment of adults with severe, active, rheumatoid arthritis or children with active polyarticular-course juvenile RA.
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Rituximab Induced Neutropenia
In reviewing submitted abstracts for the 2014 ACR meeting, I was surprised by several abstracts focusing on neutropenia in patients receiving rituximab.
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Metformin May Improve Netosis Driven Lupus Activity
Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are first line defense tools used to trap microbial pathogens.
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Statins Improve CV risk in RA
Since publication of the Jupiter trial that showed statin effects may include the lowering of C-reactive protein levels and inflammation, there have been several efforts to study the adjunctive effects of statins in rheumatoid arthritis treatment.
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Heel Pain, Uveitis, TB, Vitamin D, Hidradenitis: July 2015 top social media news
In July 2015, RheumNow published 73 tweets about impactful news, research and teaching points that I feel will have an impact on the rheumatology community. We had a reach (impressions) of 49,900, 63 mentions, and 1277 visits to RheumNow.com to check out what we publish.
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