While the risk of neoplasia with tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) use has been largely nullified in most inflammatory disorders, this risk in children is less certain. However a recent study shows no risk of increased cancer in children treated with TNFi for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (pIBD) and pediatric plaque psoriasis (pPsO).

A population-based study of claims data from Korea shows that among inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients receiving tumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) there is a 3.7 per 100 patient-year risk of paradoxically developing psoriasis - a rate that is roughly 3-fold higher than risk in TNFi-naive IBD patients.

Reuters reports that Canada’s Senate on Thursday voted to legalize recreational marijuana, clearing a major hurdle that puts the country on track to become the first Group of Seven nation to permit national use of the drug.

Dr. Jack Cush discusses the past week's news and journal articles featured on RheumNow.com - including reports on advance practice clinicians, baricitinib, gout, disease activity, hypomagnesemia and upadacitinib.

Racial discrimination was a key feature at a 2-day summit on pain management and the opioid crisis, hosted by the National Institutes of Health on Thursday and Friday.

A systematic review of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), advocated in the president's Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan, fails to show evidence of efficacy in preventing nonfatal and fatal overdoses.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved baricitinib (Olumiant) for use in adults in moderate-to-severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have had an inadequate response to TNF inhibitors (TNFi). It is not approved for use, nor has it been studied, in children.

Today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved baricitinib (Oluminant) at the lower dose of 2 mg per day for use in adults with with moderate-to-severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have had an inadequate response to commonly-used treatments known as TNF inhibitors.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews this weeks reports from RheumNow.com, including the risk of autoimmunity with vaccination, early RA outcomes, new FDA approvals for certolizumab and tofacitinib and the risk of death from infection with biologics.

Treatment of refractory giant cell arteritis (GCA) with ustekinumab (Stelara) showed therapeutic promise as a steroid-sparing agent in a small, open-label study, Irish researchers reported.

A meta-analysis has suggested that obesity is an under-reported predictor of inferior response to tumor necrosis factor blockade (anti-TNF) in a range of inflammatory immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), with the results showing a 60% risk of impaired response to anti-TNF across several

Canadian researchers have analyzed population data and shown that the incidence and prevalence of depression, anxiety  and bipolar disorders are elevated in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients compared to a matched population.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) were at increased risks for malignancy, and possibly more so if they were treated with conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), a meta-analysis found.

In nine cohort studies that included more than 43,000 PsA patients, the pooled relative risk for overall malignancy was 1.29 (95% CI 1.04-1.60) compared with the general population, according to Yunyun Fei, MD, and colleagues from Peking Union Medical College in Beijing.

The current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine examines patterns of potential opioid misuse that are associated with subsequent adverse outcomes nationally.

Amgen announced that the U.S.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that the anti-interleukin (IL)-1β monoclonal antibody canakinumab (Ilaris) was effective in the treatment of three distinct autoinflammatory recurrent fever syndromes (FMF, TRAPS, HIDS) with responses that were far superior to what was see

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.  He discusses opioids, new approval for polyarticular JIA, running and osteoarthritis, and modifiable behaviors that influence outcomes. 

Lee and colleagues from Brigham and Women's Hospital have analyzed the last decade of disease‐modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) use in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and found nearly 40% were treated with a bDMARD, along with a decreasing trend in complete DMARD discontinuations.

Both high and low levels of uric acid were linked with increased risks of death, showing a U-shaped association between serum uric acid levels and all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality, Korean researchers reported.

A current study in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that while US physicians who received no opioid-related marketing payments had fewer opioid prescriptions in 2015 compared with 2014, those receiving such payments wrote for more opioid in 2015.