Dr. Jack Cush answers audience clinical case questions sent by email or "ask Cush anything". Cases and questions from:

A group of researchers lead by Min Ae Lee-Kirsch from the Department of Pediatrics, Medical Faculty, TUD Dresden University of Technology (Germany), studied four patients from two families who developed symptoms of SLE in the first years of life.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews highlights, advances and hot topics in rheumatology from 2023 and the RheumNow website.  

2023 was a year of growth and new horizons while returning to operational and practice standards (in care and education) established before the pandemic.  

Here is my top 10 list (in no particular order) of 2023 advances, game-changers, and developments that changed, or will soon change, rheumatologic practices.

A new study suggests that use of ELISA assays for CXCL-10 and IFN-α can predict which ANA+ individuals may progress to developing a systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease (SARD).

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com. Two major reports on fatigue and fibromyalgia misfired, and "ankylosing spondylitis" is sent to the Rheumatology dead word cemetery. 

Dr. Jack Cush reviews this past week's news and journal reports from RheumNow.com. Good news is that nearly 99% of adult rheumatology positions matched! But the challenge is that 45% of pediatric fellowship programs and 39% of pediatric rheum slots were unfilled in the 2024 NRMP match.

Drs. Jack Cush and Arthur Kavanaugh discuss highlights and key takeaways from ACR 23.

Research work from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP: RA/SLE) Network, was published in Nature and more specifically characterizes RA synovium into several cell-type abundance phenotypes (CTAPs). Could CTAPs known disease features or more effective future therapies? 

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news, journal reports and regulatory approvals from the past week on RheumNow.com.

JAK inhibitors are known to increase the risk of herpes zoster infections between between 3-5 fold.  Two recent reports suggest variable efficacy when JAK inhibitor (JAKi) treated patients are vaccinated with the recombinant herpes zoster subunit vaccine (RZV). 

EULAR has published updated recommendations for the management of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) based on new evidence and expert opinion - formulationg five overarching principles and 13 recommendations.

On Oct. 6, 2023, Novartis announced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an intravenous (IV) formulation of secukinumab (Cosentyx) for use in treating adults with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA).

This week, Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news with special guest, Dr. Janet Pope. They discuss "Not-non-Inferior", large scale genetic screening, Zoster risk w/ newer lupus drugs, tapering, RA referral problems and the TNR webinar session on "ORAL Surveillance Revisited".

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and EULAR have combined efforts to establish an international multidisciplinary Steering Committee to develop classification criteria for the new antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) to be applied in observational studies and clinical trials.

Researchers have shown that gut microbiome differences may be associated with later development of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and that such differences are present years before the disease is diagnosed.

The IL-23 inhibitor guselkumab was studied in active psoriatic arthritis patients in the phase 3b COSMOS trial, and shown to be clinically effective while reducing multiple effector cytokines, including those associated with the IL-23/IL-17 pathway.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the wonderful wide world of Rheumatology. This week:

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.  This week highlights Veterans, Vegetarians and Antenatal Corticosteroids.