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.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients are often said to have no or a low risk of cancer.

Dr. Steven Katz describes how NIAMS sets priorities for investing congressionally-appropriated funds.

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)].

The current JAMA issue examines the process and potential flaws of society clinical practice guidelines -a timely commentary as we await the 2015 ACR RA treatment guidelines first presented at the 2014 ACR meeting in Boston and slated for upcoming publication in Arthritis & Rheumatology

The CDC has released data from the NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) analysis of 2005-2010 data regarding the population frequency of osteoporosis and osteopenia.

In a study that compared seropositive (RF+, CCP+) and seronegative RA with healthy participants, the frequency of thyroid antibodies was assessed.

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.

In reviewing submitted abstracts for the 2014 ACR meeting, I was surprised by several abstracts focusing on neutropenia in patients receiving rituximab.

A new expanded cardiovascular (CV) risk calculator for use in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been developed to take into account disease-specific factors that can worsen risk, researchers reported.

A Danish population, claims-based study studied the the associations between 74,129 patients with incident psoriasis and 13,114 with incident uveitis between 1997 and 2011.

Little is known about what happens when NSAIDs are used in patients with chronic kidned disease (CKD), especially those with hypertension.

Rheumatoid arthritis not only affects the joints but can also increase risk for cardiovascular disease. The mechanism of the increased risk of cardiovascular disease in rheumatoid arthritis remains uncertain.

Using claims data from 36,965 patients in an Indiana database, researchers found women (OR 1.86) and non-black patients (OR 1.52) were more likely to be treated (p<0.001) for osteoporosis.

Using a metagenome-wide association study (MGWAS) of fecal, dental and salivary samples from rheumatoid arthritis and healthy controls, Zhang et al showed that gut and oral microbiomes are highly concordant and that in RA there is a distinct dysbiosis with less Haemophilus spp.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive, fibrosing form of interstitial pneumonia, with poor survival rates of nearly 50% at 3 years.

The frequency of gout among patients with psoriatic disease was studied in two cohorts of 98,810 patients from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2010) and the Nurses' Health Study (1998-2010).

Several news articles have addressed the rising concern by patients and physicians over the cost of newer drugs. This issue comes to a head as more than 100 oncologists from top cancer hospitals around the U.S.

Several drugs continue to be in short supply, posing significant problems for patients. Foremost on this list is leflunomide (Arava) which is backordered for both 10 mg and 20 mg tablets.  

Leflunomide Shortage

Karmacharya and colleages have reviewed 33 cases of rituximab-induced serum sickness. Half of these patients had the classic triad of SS fever, rash, and arthralgia and a self-limiting course. The time to onset after infusion was greater with the first dose of rituximab c