All News
The Consequences and Cure of Hepatitis C
I spent this past week seeing hepatitis C patients with our hepatologists, and being a rheumatologist, I was looking forward to seeing extra-hepatic manifestations of HCV that we read about in text-books - cryoglobulinemic vasculitis, sicca syndrome, porphyria cutanea tarda and many others. I suppose I should not be surprised that the week passed without seeing a single one of these.
Read ArticleUsing Synovial Tissue Biopsies to Develop Precision Medicine for Rheumatoid Arthritis
Researchers at Northwestern University have used ultrasound-guided tissue biopsy from the joints to analyze the genes of tissue macrophages with the hope that transcriptional profiling of synovial macrophages may be correlated with clinical parameters or drug responsiveness in rheumatoi
Read ArticlePlaquenil During Lupus Pregnancy Lessens Flares
A large cohort study of pregnant and non-pregnant women with systemic lupus erythematosus has shown that lupus flares are increased during pregnancy and in the 3 months follwing delivery.
Read ArticleGout Crystal Deposition is Deeper than its Measures
Dalbeth and colleagues have published that among gout patients without palpable tophic and despite long term allopurinol, nearly half have monosodium urate (MSU) as detected by Dual-energy CT (DECT). The total body urate deposition is even greater in those with higher sUA and evidence
Read ArticleAre ANA Tests Unreliable?
Pisetsky and colleagues have reported in the Annals of Rheumatic Disease that ANA tests done on established SLE patients may yield surprisingly disparate results.
While ANA negative lupus was a problem of old assays and the loss of ANA positivity may be seen with chronicity or age, most rheumatologists believe that ANA positivity is an absolute requirement for the diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus.
Read ArticleT2T Improves Primary Care Gout Management
Researchers from Geisinger Medical center tested a pilot primary care gout management improvement intervention, and demonstrated significantly improved primary care gout management metrics when a treat to target approach was implemented.
Read ArticlePoor Prognosis of the MDA-5 Antibody in Dermatomyositis
Researchers from Hong Kong assessed the clinical associations seen with the anti-melanoma differentiation-associated gene 5 antibody (anti-MDA5 Ab) assay in consecutive patients with dermatomyositis (DM) and polymyositis (PM).
Read ArticleThe RheumNow Week in Review - 5 January 2018
Dr Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
Read ArticleCommunity Screening for Fracture Risk in Older Women is Effective and Feasible
A UK Study published in Lancet shows that community-based screening programme for fracture risk in older women is feasible, and may reduce hip fractures.
Read ArticleBone Marrow Edema May be Found in Normals, Athletes and Military Recruits
Rheumatology has published a study demonstrating that bone marrow edema as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be found in healthy people, but that such changes do not change with intense physical activity.
Read ArticleFibromyalgia Diagnosed by Two Simple Tests
Researchers from the Oregon Health Science Center have reported that fibromyalgia can be distinguished from chronic pain by primary care providers (PCPs) who employ two simple screening tests: BP cuff-evoked pain and a single patient question, and pain induced by pinching the Achilles tendon.&nbs
Read ArticleThe ACR17 RheumNow Week in Review - 1 December 2017
Dr Jack Cush reviews nighlights and news from the past 2 weeks on RheumNow.com. This week's report includes new drug approvals, disappointing ACR guidelines, Lyme & Zika, infertility, dermatomyositis skin outcomes and myositis-associated cancer testing.
Read ArticleACR17 Good News – Ankylosing Spondylitis and Spondyloarthritis
The following is a collection of AS/SpA-specific mentions culled from RheumNow's coverage of the Annual ACR 2017 meeting in San Diego.
Read ArticleGood News from ACR17 - Gout
The following is a collection of gout-specific mentions culled from RheumNow's coverage of the Annual ACR 2017 meeting in San Diego.
Read ArticleMTX Doubles Hepatotoxicity Risk in Psoriasis Patients
A study from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology showing that the risk of incident liver disease doubled when patients with psoriasis (PsO) or psoriatic arthritis (PsA) take methotrexate (MTX), but not when
Read ArticleCrescendo ACR Presentations
Crescendo Bioscience, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MYGN), today announced that six studies on Vectra® DA will be featured at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) meeting being held Nov.
Read ArticleHigh Volume Lyme Disease Reporting in Low Incidence Arkansas
Even though Arkansas lies on the edge of the geographic range of the principal Lyme disease tick vector, Ixodes scapularis, the risk for Lyme infection is low, and no confirmed Lyme disease cases were reported in Arkansas during 2008–2014 (1)
Read ArticleThe RheumNow Week in Review - 6 October 2017
The RheumNow Week in Review discusses the past week's news, journal articles and highlights from RheumNow.com. In this week's report, Dr. Jack Cush discusses when to hold the biologic, lymphoma risk with tofacitinib, early clues to the diagnosis of RA, biologic use in pregnancy, what's killing psoriasis patients and the 2016 top 5, best selling drugs in rheumatology.
Read ArticleIsolated SS-B Not Associated with Connective Tissue Disease
A one-year prospective study of 624 patients undergoing autoantibody testing for anti-SS-A and/or anti-SS-B autoantibodies finds that isolated anti-SS-B autoantibodies was not associated with features or the diagnosis of any specific connective tissue diseases (CTD).
Read ArticleRituximab Efficacy in IgG4 Related Disease
PLOS reports greater than 90% efficacy when rituximab (RTX) is used to treat patients with IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD).
Read Article