This special edition of the RheumNow Week in Review covers highlights of selected sessions from the 2017 ACR annual meeting in San Diego. Dr.

Check out this compilation of our ACR17 Day 3 broadcasts, merged into a single one hour podcast !

With ACR 2017 winding down and the sheer volume of information seemingly overwhelming, I wanted to take the time to write an article regarding a few tips I learned that I will use in clinical practice.

While the incidence of pneumocystis pneumonia (PJP) is low is patients with rheumatologic diseases the mortality is quite high compared to PJP in patients with HIV and infection can be prevented with appropriate prophylaxis.

During today’s plenary session Micheal D. George, et al. presented results of a study that sought to compare risk of post-op infections in RA patients undergoing arthroplasty exposed to biologic DMARDs versus methotrexate.

We take many things for granted. I walked 11,151 steps today going from sessions to posters and exhibit halls to learn as much as I can to take back to my clinic so I can help my patients.  My feet were hurting, and my back bothered me as I tried to get comfortable for the next lecture; yet, these minor discomforts are nothing compared to what our patients experience on a daily basis.

We know that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in RA and that traditional risk factors do not fully account for increased risk.

From Dr. Michelle Petri’s lecture on Antiphospholipid Syndrome Updates at ACR17 Review Course on Saturday, I learned that there is now a new class of diseases called the complementopathies.  This was the first time I heard of this term; how many patients did I misdiagnose who really had this and what are the ICD10 codes?!

Professor Rosenbaum is well known for his expertise in rheumatic eye disease and he gave a great summary of how to approach your patient having a red eye.

Prof Robert Inman gave a great summary of the state of the art in reactive arthritis (ReA).

The ACR Review Course was superb once again from top to bottom, from Blue Fingers to Practical Treatment of RA. Every year I wonder if I should skip it, but each year I go. And I have never regretted it. Here are my take-home messages and “pearls” from the ACR Review Course.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company confirmed that 34 abstracts related to ORENCIA® (abatacept) and the Company’s immunoscience pipeline will be presented at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology and Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Meeting, November 3-8, 2017, in San Diego.

AbbVie announced that data from 38 abstracts of HUMIRA® (adalimumab) and the company's portfolio of investigational immunology medicines will be presented at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/Association for Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP) Annual Meeting, November 3-8, in S

Not unlike rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disorders, therapeutic efficacy in Crohn's disease (CD) is often assessed clinically. There is growing use and interest in biomarkers of intestinal inflammation, such as faecal calprotectin and C-reactive protein.

Even though Arkansas lies on the edge of the geographic range of the principal Lyme disease tick vector, Ixodes scapularis, the risk for Lyme infection is low, and no confirmed Lyme disease cases were reported in Arkansas during 2008–2014 (1)

The  U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on 25 October they endorsed the use of the new GSK shingles vaccine (Shingrix) over the currently available live-virus vaccine (Zostavax) from Merck. 

Wow! I hope you read part I of yesterday's “Greatest Rheumatologist” article.  So many big names and yet, other names and stories that were equally inspirational.

If you read the comments of the part I article you can clearly see several themes emerge.

The German Rheumatoid Arthritis Biologics Registry (RABBIT) has developed an infectious risk calculator that can project a patient's risk of serious infection in the next 6 months based on several key factors - age, Prior DMARDs, prednisone dose, comorbidities and the biologic intended for use.&n

 Researchers have reported their case-control study using the Swedish Epidemiological Investigation of RA study (2641 cases/4251 controls) to examine  the influence of oral contraceptive (OC) use or breastfeeding on the risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).