I am usually thrilled to offer Plaquenil as one of the safer  therapy options to my patients with lupus and other autoimmune conditions. Unfortunately, on many occasions, once we go into detailed discussion of the potential side effects with the patient,  the issue of hydroxychloroquine eye toxicity casts a cloud over  overall optimistic view of Plaquenil.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have changed the hematology/oncology world. However, their AEs from a rheumatologic standpoint are still being evaluated and at this time, genetic risk factors for inflammatory arthritis due to ICI are not well understood. Dr. Cappelli et al evaluated a possible connection with HLA typing at their institution.

La Paulee is traditionally the party/feast after harvest and a time when hard work is rewarded with food, fun, and wine. And so it was that evening; after better understanding genes, cytokines, and pathology it was time to have a good time with friends, old and new.

In the last few years, new studies have been published examining if early intervention and tight control (TC) of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) disease activity will have the same beneficial outcomes as it does for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  

UK researchers have shown that nurse-led gout management, using a treat-to-target urate-lowering strategy, is efficacious and cost-effective compared with usual physicain care. The results are published in the recent Lancet edition. Worldwide, gout management is suboptimal. In the UK only 40% of gout patients receive urate-lowering therapy, and fewer ever achieve a target serum urate (< 6mg/d) concentration.

Dr. Jack Cush summarizes the news and reports from RheumNow.Com this past week and previews RheumNow activities at the upcoming ACR 2018 meeting in Chicago.