The July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reports that patients with psoriasis are frequent users of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) largely because of disatisfaction with traditional medications.The National Psoriasis Foundation commissioned a survey of patients on CAMs use and patients' perceptions.The survey was sent to 100,927 NPF members and 219 completed it.

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

JAMA reports that there is a trend of increasing mortality from falls in older US adults between 2000 to 2016 and that mortality rates are increased with increasing age. 

MMWR has published the outcomes from the Georgia Lupus Registry between 2002 and 2016, finding that black women were not only more likely to die from lupus than white lupus patients; but they died on average 13 years earlier (mean age 51.8 and 52.3 years, respectively) than whites (mean age 64.4 and 65.0 years, respectively). Black women with lupus were 3.34 times more likely to die than black women in the general population, while white women

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is encouraged by the Trump administration’s executive order to improve transparency of health care costs. ACP firmly believes that increasing health care transparency is critical in providing quality, affordable, and accessible health care coverage to patients who need it the most.

It is estimated that up to 50% of patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy will be complicated by interstitial lung disease, and having ILD may impart a poor prognosis. A recent review of the Johns Hopkins myositis-related ILD cohort has shown that azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil use is associated improved lung function and less prednisone use.