Arthritis & Rheumatology has published the results of the Nor-Hand study, showing that pain hand osteoarthritis (OA) was related to a higher body mass index (BMI) and also to inflammatory adipokines, such as leptin.

The 2022 ACR/EULAR revised classification criteria for eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) have been revised and validated for use in clinical research.

A prospective cohort from the Nurses’ Health Study has demonstrated that eating a healthy diet results in a 12% to 32% lower risk of incident gout and an even greater risk reduction (65% to 68%) when combined with normal weight and avoiding diuretics.

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients can be safely treated with allopurinol without an increased risk of mortality.

A prospective primary care study of patients at-risk for inflammatory arthritis (IA) showed that progression to IA was most likely in those with high anti-CCP antibody titers levels and involvement of the hands/feet/ IA.

Lancet Rheumatology reports that a treat-to-target (T2T) goal of average serum urate less than 6 mg/dL is associated with an absence of gout flares and a reduction in the number of flares in the next 12 months.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com. This week we discuss amputations, a $57 billion RA market, an FDA approved drug for Cat arthritis and drug that works in Sjogren's.

While the American College of Rheumatology recommends holding mycophenolate (MMF) in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases patients (RMD) receiving COVID-19 vaccines, there is limited data on such an approach. A recent cohort study of RMD patients showed that holding MMF yielded higher antibody responses than continuing MMF.

Analysis of two large cohorts of systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients shows a signfiicant minority of patients to have autoantibodies typical of rheumatoid erosive arthrits, but their presence in SSc patients was associated with unique manifestations of SSc. 

Systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) is a dramatic onset inflammatory condition marked by spiking fevers, intermittent rash, polyarthritis and a host of other hyperinflammatory manifestations.

Dr. Jack Cush interviews Professor Edward Keystone, MD (University of Toronto) on the origins and science behind the 60/40/20 benchmark and outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis.

There were several hot topics at ACR21. Here I concentrate on top abstracts in vasculitis. 

The ACR 2021 meeting has concluded. Dr. Jack Cush recounts a few more great abstracts from this past week’s virtual meeting.

Identifying patients that will develop RA in situations of seropositivity without overt clinical arthritis or identifying patients with undifferentiated oligo/polyarthritis that will develop RA remains a challenge in the field of rheumatology.