de Winter and colleagues from the Netherlands have reported on magnetic resonance imaging of the sacroiliac joints of healthy subjects, patients with axial spondyloarthritis, runners and those with chronic back pain, and found a high incidence of sacroiliitis in many, but that deep bone marrow edema was most specific for those with axial SpA.

Treatment of refractory giant cell arteritis (GCA) with ustekinumab (Stelara) showed therapeutic promise as a steroid-sparing agent in a small, open-label study, Irish researchers reported.

A meta-analysis has suggested that obesity is an under-reported predictor of inferior response to tumor necrosis factor blockade (anti-TNF) in a range of inflammatory immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), with the results showing a 60% risk of impaired response to anti-TNF across several IMIDs. Surprisingly, however, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) appeared to be the exception to the obesity-response effect.

Canadian researchers have analyzed population data and shown that the incidence and prevalence of depression, anxiety  and bipolar disorders are elevated in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients compared to a matched population.

The American College of Physicians have published a position paper in Annals of Internal Medicine calling for an examination of the challenges facing women in the U.S. health, including access to care; sex- and gender-specific health issues; variation in health outcomes compared with men; underrepresentation in research studies; and public policies that affect women, their families, and society.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) were at increased risks for malignancy, and possibly more so if they were treated with conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), a meta-analysis found.In nine cohort studies that included more than 43,000 PsA patients, the pooled relative risk for overall malignancy was 1.29 (95% CI 1.04-1.60) compared with the general population, according to Yunyun Fei, MD, and colleagues from Peking

Adults with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee who frequently experienced restless sleep were less likely to engage in potentially beneficial moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, analysis of data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative found.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews this past week's news from RheumNow.com - the risk of Cutaneous and Systemic LE, increasing flu vaccination, higher risk of VTE, MPO predictions, new drug for GIOP and CIRT - MTX in cardiovascular risk patients.

The current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine examines patterns of potential opioid misuse that are associated with subsequent adverse outcomes nationally. Researchers analyzed a 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries who had an opioid prescription, without a cancer diagnosis.  Specifically the sought to correlate a diagnosis of opioid overdose with other measures of opioid misuse including:

A study of MPO-ANCA positive patients followed serially over 2 years shows that reappearance of MPO‐ANCA may predict  relapse in patients with MPO‐ANCA positive AAV and that routine MPO‐ANCA monitoring is warranted.  This study aimed to establish a potential link between myeloperoxidase (MPO)‐antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) and relapse in those with ANCA‐associated vasculitis (AAV). 

Leadership positions in medicine are disproportionately filled by men. Although the enrollment of medical schools are equal male: female or even some have more women, 40% of American medical institutions lack programs for recruiting women, or for retention and promotion of female faculty.This may also be true in rheumatology, which is now attracting more women than men as trainees. I recently wrote an article in the 

Amgen announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Prolia® (denosumab) for the treatment of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIOP) in men and women at high risk of fracture, defined as a history of osteoporotic fracture, multiple risk factors for fracture, or patients who have failed or are intolerant to other available osteoporosis therapy.

Just because it’s busted, it doesn’t mean you have to fix it.  At some point, it’s important to know when to leave “good-enough” alone. Such is the story of the "busted valise" and what to do about it.

Rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals convened on Capitol Hill this week to urge legislative action on pressing policy issues affecting rheumatology care during the American College of Rheumatology’s Advocacy Leadership Conference, held May 16 -17, 2018 in Washington, D.C.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that the anti-interleukin (IL)-1β monoclonal antibody canakinumab (Ilaris) was effective in the treatment of three distinct autoinflammatory recurrent fever syndromes (FMF, TRAPS, HIDS) with responses that were far superior to what was seen with placebo on almost every outcome measure, a randomized study found.