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MTX Fails Knee OA (6.6.2025)

Jack Cush, MD

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

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Methotrexate Fails in Knee Osteoarthritis

MedPage Today

We'll be blunt: methotrexate flopped in a randomized placebo-controlled trial among patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee.

Contrary to results from a previous trial in hand OA, the old-line disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD) failed to bring any improvement relative to placebo in either pain or an objective measure of joint inflammation after a year of treatment, according to Changhai Ding, PhD, MD, of Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues.

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Moneyball Rheumatology (5.30.2025)

Jack Cush, MD

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the book/movie, "Moneyball" and a suggests moneyball strategy is needed to find next level responses for our patients.

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Diagnosing Neuropsychiatric SLE (5.23.2025)

Jack Cush, MD

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from RheumNow.com - including views on the vagus nerve, NPSLE and CAR-T mania.

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No Cancer Recurrence with Biologic DMARDs in RA

Jack Cush, MD

A prospective Danish rheumatoid arthritis (RA) registry study look at the risk of recurrence when a biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) was ued in patients with a a prior solid cancer (in remission) and found no increased cancer

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syringe, pill, DMARD, Treatment, therapy

Tocilizumab vs. Methotrexate in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Jack Cush, MD

A large randomized rheumatoid arthritis (RA) clinical trial compared subcutaneous tocilizumab (TCZ) vs oral methotrexate (MTX) vs. the combination of subcutaneous TCZ and MTX, and showed that TCZ was superior to MTX, either given as TCZ monotherapy or in combination with MTX. 

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Early RA or undiff. arthritis (UA) shows initial hi-dose steroids have significantly better earlier outcomes, but lower doses have fewer early side effects. IMPROVED used high dose GC (60 mg/d tapered to 7.5 mg in 7wks). tREACH used lower dose GC (15 mg/d tapered in 10 wks to https://t.co/TkrGPb6EBZ
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Turkish study of 1263 primary care referrals to rheumatology found 35.7% with inflammatory rheumatic Dz (IRD), 17.7% osteoarthritis, and 11.2% regional pain syndromes. Another German study showed low risk of IRD if CRP <5 https://t.co/v5qYb7c7jP https://t.co/iq4NfcC3cH https://t.co/6lkTMSBUqc

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Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Hydroxychloroquine for Everyone Nearly 25 years ago, while lecturing on best therapies for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), I loudly stated that hydroxychloroquine was “useless” and, deservedly, I was “boo-ed” off stage. My point then was that rheumatologists needed to be aggressive, https://t.co/qKnObzr5ib
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Why DORIS or LLDAS #remission 🤔 ⬇️mortality ⬇️damage ⬆️QoL Dr Nikpour at On Rheum Assoc Shows Remission > LLDAS no pred ✅ best @RheumNow https://t.co/tFcPrkd5Vd

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Janet Pope Janetbirdope ( View Tweet)
Lupus QD Clinic - Rhupus dsDNA+ SLE Plus CCP+ RA = Rhupus https://t.co/lyV7fgd1vp https://t.co/Ptw0dmyqCj

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Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
T2T in #SLE Lots of #rheumatologists do NOT do a validated measure so #DORIS remission may be over estimated But great algorithm for #lupus #Rx ⁦@RheumNow⁩ #LUPUS2025 https://t.co/mGoopRtK2F

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Janet Pope Janetbirdope ( View Tweet)
T2T in SLE https://t.co/efTxDZz8Qd https://t.co/TvhOzCX34Q

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Janet Pope Janetbirdope ( View Tweet)
No Cancer Recurrence with Biologic DMARDs in RA A prospective Danish rheumatoid arthritis (RA) registry study look at the risk of recurrence when a biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) was ued in patients with a a prior solid cancer (in remission) and https://t.co/T7G96cAlE6
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Tocilizumab vs. Methotrexate in Rheumatoid Arthritis A large randomized rheumatoid arthritis (RA) clinical trial compared subcutaneous tocilizumab (TCZ) vs oral methotrexate (MTX) vs. the combination of subcutaneous TCZ and MTX, and showed that TCZ was superior to MTX, either https://t.co/AS8MJaujIE
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
If vagus nerve stimulation improves RA; then what if vagotomy? Danish study of vagotomy (1977-1995). 6070 vagotomy matched w/ 60,699 comparators. Truncal vagotomy was assoc w/ signif incr RA incidence (OR 2.62), but not superselective vagotomy (OR 1.05). NO diff in incident OA https://t.co/Rs1EyrQd57
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Infusion/injxn-reactions (IRRs) w/ biologics studied in 1,832 RA pts - IRRs seen in 9.7% & were signif more common w/ being younger (OR1.79), secondary Sjögren's (OR 2.17), prior leflunomide (OR 1.5); but less common w/ Abatacept (OR 0.26) & tocilizumab (OR 0.42), golimumab (OR https://t.co/IaHajITWri
Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Panacea of Prednisone & Cannabis (5.16.2025) Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news, journal and regulatory reports from this week on RheumNow. Interesting trends and results with prednisone in lupus, cannabis in RA and opioid deaths too! https://t.co/QDtxItYSco https://t.co/s4nYmMe3vs

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Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Periprosthetic femoral Fx (PPFF): metanalysis of 36 studies found PPFF risk factors: Uncemented stems (OR 3.36), major teaching hosp (2.0), female (1.6), obesity (1.4), Hi comorbidity(1.4), RA (1.89), (1.67), revised THR (2.6). OA = protective (0.51) https://t.co/y2BpH8LUb6 https://t.co/EjX6R9QTK3

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Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
Lupus QD Clinic - Rhupus dsDNA+ SLE Plus CCP+ RA = Rhupus https://t.co/lyV7fgd1vp https://t.co/IKkS0enQH9

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Dr. John Cush RheumNow ( View Tweet)
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