A very small study presented at ACR18 looking at tocilizumab monotherapy in patients with a new diagnosis of giant cell arteritis has nevertheless given hope to the tantalising idea that some GCA patients might achieve drug-free remission without steroids, although broader data are requ

A number of abstracts at this year’s ACR in Chicago highlighted issues around pregnancy and contraception advice in routine clinical practice.

Rheumatologists tend to be a conservative bunch of people. We’re law abiding and we (mostly) follow guidelines. Which is fine when they are in the best interests of our patients, but what do we do when we fundamentally disagree?

There have been a number of interesting posters and presentations covering the field of axial spondyloarthropathy. I’ve picked out a few points that I found particularly relevant.

Classification Criteria

Like most rheumatologists, I retain a deep and abiding love for methotrexate.

Monday afternoon's session on the treatment of Axial Spondyloarthritis presented us with a great selection of studies addressing important issues in modern treatment paradigm of AxSpA.

RheumNow is in Chicago covering the ACR annual meeting. Here are the highlights from Sunday (day one). Be sure to check our complete coverage, including articles, video reports and tweets, at acr18.rheumnow.com.

In the last few years, new studies have been published examining if early intervention and tight control (TC) of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) disease activity will have the same beneficial outcomes as it does for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  

UK researchers have shown that nurse-led gout management, using a treat-to-target urate-lowering strategy, is efficacious and cost-effective compared with usual physicain care. The results are published in the recent Lancet edition.

Dr. Jack Cush summarizes the news and reports from RheumNow.Com this past week and previews RheumNow activities at the upcoming ACR 2018 meeting in Chicago.

JAMA has a 2018 update/review of the safety issues seen with mmune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) - important new cancer therapies, with 14 cancer indications, that have significantly improved survival in several. ICIs are monoclonal antibodies that block inhibitors of T-cell activation and function.

Overlap of autoimmune disorders represents a significant diagnostic and management challenge to the rheumatologist. A novel cohort analysis of overlap between systemic sclerosis (SSc) and systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) suggests such patients tend to be younger, more frequently have PAH, but less cutaneous manifestations of SSc.

Some patients typically contraindicated for prescription nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use may be able to take them with no increased risk of harm, according to a large observational study.

Neogi and colleagues have shown that standard doses of allopurinol (300 mg/day) were associated with a 13% lower risk of renal function deterioration in chronic gout patients - thus, allopurinol does not appear to impair renal function over time.

The current edition of Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology suggests that neither vitamin D supplementation, nor dose, will improve bone density or prevent fractures in adults.

The NEJM reports that zolendronic acid was shown to significantly lower the risk of nonvertebral or vertebral fragility fractures in older women with osteopenia. 

Multiple studies have shown that elderly rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients tend to be under-treated and receive DMARD therapies less often than younger RA patients.

Only inhibitors of IL-1 (canakinumab) and IL-6 (tocilizumab) are FDA approved for use in children with systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA). Now, long-term data from the extension studies from two phase III studies shows that canakinumab yields long-term improvements with reduced glucocorticoid dosing with no new safety findings with long-term use.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news from the past week on RheumNow.com, including news on inappropriate opioids, pre-clinical RA treatment, DMARDs in Gout, the decline of arthroscopy, and a pain in the mouth.