Smoking and Rheumatoid Arthritis
Why don't rheumatologists send their smoker patients to smoking cessation programs or use aids for cessation? Do we think it is not our problem?
Blogs
Polymyalgia Rheumatica: An Interval Look at Management Questions
p dir="ltr"Despite an often fairly characteristic pattern of signs and symptoms, there are significant diagnostic challenges with polymyalgia rheumatica. The reason is that similar clinical features can be also observed in other diseases mimicking PMR, including infectious and malignancies, elderly-onset rheumatoid arthritis, giant cell arteritis, chondrocalcinosis or myositis, to mention some of the most important differential diagnoses. nbsp;/p
Time for a Paradigm Change in Rheumatoid Arthritis
How many clues are needed for a rheumatologist to know something is wrong with the therapeutic soup he/she is trying to concoct? One patient's tale leads to rethinking the RA treatment paradigm.
RA Guidelines Shouldn't Ignore the Power of Methotrexate Combo Therapy
The introduction of the 2015 rheumatoid arthritis treatment guidelines has prompted discussion and critique from many. Here's my perspective on where monotherapy and methotrexate combination therapy fits in our armamentarium.
Be the CEO of Your Health
Patients should act as if they are the CEO of a new business. Their business is the disease they must manage. The analogies of managing a business and a disease are numerous and instructive for patients and physicians alike.
The Role of Hydroxychloroquine Blood Levels in SLE
We review the available literature, with a particular focus on the recent findings in the Hopkins Lupus Cohort, regarding the clinical utility of hydroxychloroquine blood levels in helping to clarify some of the issues regarding retinopathy, how best to dose this medication, and medication adherence.
How Do I Treat Symptomatic Interstitial Lung Disease in Scleroderma?
Will the results of two recent large scleroderma lung studies finally inform us on how to manage interstitial lung disease in systemic sclerosis?
Diabolical Negativism
Our inner thoughts are usually negative, critical or pessimistic. Negative thinking is ubiquitous, and may be responsible for indecision or ill-choices. How to identify it and deal with it in patient care is an unsavory challenge often left undone.
Week in Review - 20 Feb 2016
Highlights of Rheumatology news for the week ending 20 Feb 2016.
The Week in Review - 13 February 2016
Video highlights from last week's reports, news and tweets on RheumNow.com
Why T2T is Too Risky for Some Patients
My colleagues indulged me in a small experiment. I set before them $100 in cash and offered each of them a choice: take the $100, or flip a coin for a 50% chance to win a certain amount of money that they could specify. They would tell me the minimum amount of money I needed to offer in order to prefer the coin flip over taking the $100. What does this have to do with treat-to-target?
Methotrexate: Where it All Began
It’s somewhat bizarre that a designer drug from over 65 years ago would become the cornerstone of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in the 21st century. When Sidney Farber designed a molecule that would interfere with folate metabolism in the middle of the 20th century, he was looking for a ubiquitous antimetabolite to treat cancer. Farber was actually quite concerned with the potential side effects of a drug that competitively inhibits folate metabolism. That is part of the reason he combined the “met” for metabolism with an “x”. The x was found on poison bottles and he thought it wise to include it in the name of this agent.
