The ACR Review Course was superb once again from top to bottom, from Blue Fingers to Practical Treatment of RA. Every year I wonder if I should skip it, but each year I go. And I have never regretted it. Here are my take-home messages and “pearls” from the ACR Review Course.

Responding to criticisms that the 10 year maintenance of certification exam is expensive, time-consuming, and not reflective of clinical practice, the American Board of Internal Medicine recently issued changes to their requirements, allowing more options for physicians to recertify.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company confirmed that 34 abstracts related to ORENCIA® (abatacept) and the Company’s immunoscience pipeline will be presented at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology and Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Meeting, November 3-8, 2017, in San Diego.

Novartis has announce it will present its long-term 4-year data in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and 24-weeks data in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) to be presented at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Structural disease progression is a major concern for AS and PsA patients as it may prompt mobility loss - new data to provide further evidence on the efficacy of Cosentyx to reduce structural disease progression.

AbbVie announced that data from 38 abstracts of HUMIRA® (adalimumab) and the company's portfolio of investigational immunology medicines will be presented at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/Association for Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP) Annual Meeting, November 3-8, in San Diego.

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced that it will present new data for baricitinib and Taltz® (ixekizumab) at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP) annual meeting taking place Nov. 3-8, 2017, in San Diego, Calif.

Crescendo Bioscience, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MYGN), today announced that six studies on Vectra® DA will be featured at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) meeting being held Nov.

The annual ACR/ARHP meeting, which begins today, Sunday November 5th, is for many the premier meeting in rheumatology. The good news is that RheumNow and its expanded faculty will cover the meeting today and each day until Thursday. I haven’t missed an ACR meeting since 1984. In this span of 30 years I have acquired insights on how to navigate such a big meeting. When I say big, I mean over 15,000 attendees from over 100 countries swarming

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IRWD) today announced one oral and twelve poster presentations to be presented at the upcoming ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, California from November 3-8, 2017. The meeting is hosted by the American College of Rheumatology and Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals.

Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and highlights from the past week on RheumNow.com. Hear about death and risk of lupus, tight control in Crohn's, risk of knee OA, new diagnostic tool for PMR, keeping infections low with biologics and new shingles vaccine, and infection concerns for San Diego.

Not unlike rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disorders, therapeutic efficacy in Crohn's disease (CD) is often assessed clinically. There is growing use and interest in biomarkers of intestinal inflammation, such as faecal calprotectin and C-reactive protein. But Lancet has now reported a clinical trial has shown that a tight control strategy can yield better responses to TNF inhibitors when compared to usual care. 

One-third of adults in the USA experience chronic pain and take prescription nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acetaminophen, or opioids. This report from the MedWatch system shows that 20% of reports were associated with death, with near equal contribution by NSAIDs, opioids and combination (NSAIDs plus opioids).

Clinically meaningful improvements in systemic sclerosis among patients treated with subcutaneous tocilizumab (Actemra) persisted during the open-label phase of a multinational randomized phase II trial, researchers reported.

Even though Arkansas lies on the edge of the geographic range of the principal Lyme disease tick vector, Ixodes scapularis, the risk for Lyme infection is low, and no confirmed Lyme disease cases were reported in Arkansas during 2008–2014 (1)

The European League Against Rheumatism and the American College of Rheumatology (EULAR/ACR) have developed classification criteria for idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) based on data from 976 IIM patients (74% adults; 26% children) and 624 non-IIM patients with mimicking conditions (82% adults; 18% children) from 47 rheumatology, dermatology, neurology and paediatric clinics worldwide.