All News
RheumNow Podcast – Falling or Falling in Love?
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the best journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
Read Article
ARTIC REWIND - Don't Half DMARD Therapy
The ARTIC-REWIND study examined rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in remission on conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs) to see if they could "step-down" their csDMARDs theray; but the study showed that 25% those who went on half-dose experienced disease fl
Read Article
Drug Monitoring Ineffective with Infliximab Treatment
The predictive value of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) while on biologics is debateable; gastroenterology routinely relies on TDM, while rheumatologists do not.
Read Article
Autoimmune Thyroid Disease in Women
JAMA has posted an insights article reviewing autoimmune thyroid disease in women. Thyroid autoimmunity has a higher prevalence in women and with increasing age.
Similar to many autoimmune disorders, thyroid disease is more common in women than in men.
Read Article
Uric Acid: A Major Player in the Metabolic Syndrome
An open source, free read from the European Journal of Internal Medicine discusses how uric acid has evolved from the toxic cause of gout and nephrolithiasis and evolved, by way of science, into a pleiotropic recidivist in the evolution of obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, renal disease, hypertension, fatty liver, and cardiovascular disease.
Read Article
Predictors of Methotrexate Toxicity
A metanalysis showed that while adverse events (AEs) are common when methotrexate is used in rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory arthritis patients, serious AEs ranged from 2.1 to 9.5% and drug discontinuations ranged from 6.7% to 15.5%, mostly due to gastrointestinal events.
Read Article
Lupus Activity Affects Mortality
Each one-unit increase on a disease activity score during the first year after enrollment into a systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) cohort was associated with a significant increased risk for death and organ damage during subsequent follow-up, researchers reported.
Read Article
RheumNow Podcast – Coconspirators: RA and Lung Disease
Dr. Jack Cush reviews and discusses more than a dozen news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
Read Article
RheumNow Podcast – Upadacitinib Wins in PsA (4.2.2021)
Dr Jack Cush reviews the news and Journal reports and takes "Back Talk" questions from viewers.
Read Article
Hypertension Unaffected by Urate Lowering Therapy
Does uric acid contribute to the risk of hypertension (HTN)? A recent cohort trial shows that allopurinol in young adults does not sufficiently lower blood pressure (BP).
Read Article
RheumNow Podcast – Infection in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis (3.26.2021)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news, FDA Denials and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
Read Article
MDA-5 Antibodies and Juvenile Dermatomyositis
A multicentre, retrospective study examined MSA profiles (by immunoprecipitation) from 96 juvenile idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (JIIM) at nine pediatric rheumatology centres in Japan. MSA were found in 85 of 96 cases with over 90% of patients having one of the following three MSA
Read Article
Weight Loss to Avert Risk of Gout
Analysis of the NHANES population survey data shows weight gain during adulthood increases the risk of gout and that maintaining normal weight could reduce the overall gout risk by nearly 33%.
Read Article
Combo Therapy Boosts Response in Uncontrolled Gout
The addition of an immunomodulating agent to pegloticase (Krystexxa) among patients with uncontrolled gout significantly improved response rates, a systematic literature review found.
Read Article
NEJM: Interleukin-6 Inhibition in Critically-Ill COVID-19
The pendulum and jury are wavering with regard to the benefits of interleukin-6 receptor antagonists in COVID-19; the current NEJM reports the results of a study favoring such biologic therapy in in critically ill COVID-19 patients.
Read Article
RheumNow Podcast – Systemic Sclerosis Pearls (2.19.2021)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews nearly a dozen news and journal reports from the past 2 weeks on RheumNow.com, including the ACR's new COVID-19 vaccine guidance for patients with rheumatic disease.
Read Article
High Risk Cancer Profiling with Inflammatory Myositis
A recent metanalysis of studies suggest you may be able to use certain clinical factors to stratify cancer risk in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs).
Read Article
MIRROR Study: Pegloticase With Methotrexate in Uncontrolled Gout
Botson et al has reported that the combination of methotrexate (MTX) and IV pegloticase is safe and effective in patients with uncontrolled gout.
This exploratory, open-label clinical trial screened 17 patients and treated 14 patients (all men, 49.3 ± 8.7 years) with IV pegloticase with MTX (15 mg/week) and folic acid (1 mg/day) 4 weeks prior to and throughout pegloticase treatment.
RheumNow Podcast – Rheumatology Burnout (1.29.2021)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews this past week's journal articles and news features on RheumNow.com. Colchicine, vaccine rollout, risk of RA in endometriosis patients, tREACH trial, lupus nephritis news, rheumatology burnout and more.
Read Article
Lupus Nephritis Despite Low Level Proteinuria
Kidney International reports on a series of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, who despite inactive urinary sediment and low level proteinuria, had a high rate of glomerulonephritis (GN) proven by renal biopsy; moreover, the LN was not predicted by laboratory abnormalities.
Read Article
