Based on the safety review of tofacitinib in Pfizer's Oral Surveillance (1133) study, the FDA has added serious boxed warnings to all three marketed JAK inhibitors (for inflammatory diseases) and formalized the recommendation that patients should be started on a TNF inhibitor (TNFi) before trying a JAK inhibitor. These recommendations apply to tofacitinib, baricitinib and upadacitinib.

On Feb. 27, the Food and Drug Administration announced it has issued an emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose Covid vaccine, making it the third COVID-19 vaccine to be commercially available.  We've compiled a comparison table and some key information relevant to your delivering patient guidance henceforth. 

It began as many cases do: an ill patient, in the ICU, with signs and symptoms across several body systems, yet no clear unifying diagnosis on admission. With things stabilizing, the internal medicine hospital team on which I was serving as hospitalist that week assumed care of the patient. As the case unfolded – pulmonary infiltrates that could be hemorrhagic, renal dysfunction with proteinuria – rheumatic diseases rose in the differential.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews and discusses the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com.