A new scientific review of 148 studies enrolling over 4.3 million adult chronic pain patients treated with prescription opioid painkillers has found that nearly one in ten patients experiences opioid dependence or opioid use disorder and nearly one in three shows symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder.

The Annals of Internal Medicine reports that oral, low dose, weekly methotrexate significantly reduced knee osteoarthritis (KOA) pain, stiffness, and function in a randomized controlled trial.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com. Location matters; Geo-rheumatology?

Researchers at Rush University analyzed clinic MDHAQ data and found between 36-40% of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis patients screen positive comorbid anxiety, depression, or fibromyalgia.

This week on the RheumNow Podcast, Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports of interesting, including irAE, pollution and Psoriasis, microwave therapy, scleroderma without scleroderma that only the best rheumatologists could discern.

The journal Pain has shown geographic differences in arthritis-attributable pain, arthritis-related outcomes mostly clustered in the Deep South and Appalachia, while severe arthritis pain is more prevalent in the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Georgia, Florida, and Maine.  

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

The trouble with rheumatology may be the words we live by. Welcome to the eulogy for rheumatology 'dead words'. We're here today to celebrate the loss of rheumatology past. These are dead words in rheumatology, words fortified unfortunately by history and habit. The lexicon of rheumatology is unique, it's challenging and it's mostly incomprehensible to those who don't know...but those are the cornerstones of the greatest of medical subspecialties. 

EULAR has published the 2023 updated recommendations for the optimal non-pharmacological management of hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA).

A randomised controlled trial of adults with recurrent low back pain (LBP) has shown that a program of progressive walking and education intervention significantly reduced low back pain recurrence.