The GRAPPA (Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis) treatment recommendations have been updated and the 2021 evidence-based guidance is rich in treatment recommendations based on the key disease "domains" - peripheral arthritis, axial disease, enthesitis, dactylitis, skin and nail psoriasis; with new PsA related domains uveitis and inflammatory bowel disease.
Recent FDA and MMWR warnings suggest that gabapentin was present and implicated in almost 10% of US overdose deaths between 2019 and 2020. This CDC report also stated that gabapentin was the cause of the death in half of these cases.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) appeared less safe from a cardiovascular standpoint than methotrexate in older patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), analysis of Medicare data indicated.
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has updated its recommendations regarding the efficacy of supplements or multivitamins for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality in the general adult population.
Pooled data from two large ixekizumab (IXE) trials show that male patients had greater clinical responses than did female patients with psoriatic arthritis are largely unexplored. Reasons for this differential treatment responses to an interleukin-17A inhibitor (IXE) between male and female patients is unexplained.
A cohort study of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients evaluated immunogenicity of COVID vaccination with and without holding methotrexate (MTX) for and 2-weeks and showed better immunogenicity, but more RA flares with the second MTX withdrawal.
A tutorial on podcasting - what works and what does not, 7 keys to podcast success, who and what is it for, and more!
A pooled analyses of data from eight, phase 2 and 3 randomized clinical trials shows bimekizumab, a dual IL-17A/F inhibitor, to be effective in plaque psoriasis and was well tolerated aside from an increased incidence of mild to moderate oral candidiasis.
Aside from cost, there are significant concerns regarding efficacy and safety outcomes and recovery time. These issues are compounded with the need for bilateral TKR, wherein the patient and surgeon need to decide whether to have both TKRs done simultaneously or staged (single TKR one after another with a recovery period in between).
A study in PNAS of has shown that autoantibodies against type I interferons (IFNs) are strong predictors of death from COVID-19. This adds to the evidence that evidence preexisting autoantibodies neutralizing IFNs are strong determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia.
Whether exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun can cause new-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) wasn't settled by data from a large, long-running epidemiologic study, but the trends indicated that it could.
A EULAR taskforce systematically reviewd the literature on the effects of diet and lifestyle behaviors in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs), and found little evidence suggesting dietary factors can substantially affect the outcomes in people with RMDs.
There is a shortage of rheumatologists in Canada and the recent 2020 Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) Workforce and Wellness study shows that the shortage may be compounded by rheumatologist burnout, especially among young and female physicians.
Annals of Internal Medicine reports that thiopurine toxcicity risk is associated with the "CC" genotype and that azathioprine discontinuation was associated with hematopoietic toxicity and lower thiopurine doses.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new COVID-related syndrome in children, the "Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children" (MIS), was described as being similar to but distinctly different than childhood Kawasaki's disease (KD). A new epidemiologic report shows that while MIS-C cases rose, KD cases fell and remained low during the period of masking and school closure.