The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) has published comprehensive recommendations on reproductive health and family planning for women with systemic lupus erythematosus and/or antiphospholipid syndrome – conditions that largely affect women of childbearing age.
Circadian rhythms may be disrupted or become exaggerated in a variety of inflammatory conditions. For instance, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-1 have a known circadian cycle to their production, but the same can not be said for TNF.
A EULAR task force of 24 individuals (including 15 rheumatologists) have updated their previous 2006 guidelines for gout. The current update, which includes 11 recommendations, is based on a systematic literature review and a Delphi consensus approach to recommendations.
Highlights from this week on RheumNow.com include:
1. Having #RA in addition to solid cancer (breast, lung, prostate, colon) increases mortality rates by 40-50% in elders https://t.co/aitjusmOai
2. The global market for rheumatoid arthritis therapies was $19.9 billion in 2015, expected to reach $21.3B by 2020 https://t.co/d2Sh5C8y9f
3. Half of doctors never heard of MACRA:Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act. Starts on Jan 1st! https
Infections are a concern for many when using tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitor (TNFi) therapy to treat inflammatory disorders. Even moreso in those at higher risk.
A recent analysis of 23 HIV-infected patients, with 26 uses of TNFi from four centers examined the infectious outcomes with 86.7 person-years of follow-up between January 1999 and March 2015.
Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are more prevalent, often more severe, and sometimes refractory to conventional treatments in HIV-positive patients, but clinicians are understandably concerned about moving on to immunosuppressive anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents when other treatments fail.
The recent edition of Science has an interesting article on the cause of death in a dinosaur - septic arthritis.Palentologists have unearthed a 70 million year old duck-billed dinosaur near New Jersey and found that the arm bones were not quite right.
Serial biomarker or clinical metric assessments are ubiquitous and commonly used to assess patients with rheumatoid arthritis (HAQ, CDAI, RAPID3), lupus (C3, C4, dsDNA) and gout (uric acid). But numerous disorders are either harder to assess or have tools or metrics that that are not commonly used.
Patient-reported outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) correlate independently with measures of inflammation and structural damage on MRI scans, according to data from a longitudinal study.
Nerve growth factor (NGF) is a key modulator of pain perception, Inhibitors of NGF are being studied in several chronic pain conditions, including osteoarthritis (OA).
There is considerable heterogeneity in "red flags" amongst numerous low back pain (LBP) guidelines worldwide. A "red flags" denotes a finding, which if present, imparts a significantly high risk of underlying serious spinal pathology with considerable subsequent morbidity or mortality.
Chingcuanco and coinvestigators have reported on their comparative analysis of biosimilars and their originator TNF inhibitors in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. (Citation source: http://buff.ly/2arTd1q)
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS) is an autosomal-dominant autoinflammatory disease resulting from mutations of the TNF super family receptor 1A (TNFRSF1A) gene.
My NP is not only a great nurse, counselor, rheumatologist, complex disease manager, joint injector, diabetes expert, clinic leader, mother, wife, and friend – she’s the go to person if you’re a patient, coworker, colleague, cousin or neighbor. She is one of few great partnerships in my entire career. To go to battle with a NP at my side gives me a tremendous daily advantage.
A study published in the British Medical Journal examines whether knee surgery or conservative medical management benefits those with degenerative meniscal tears. (Citation source http://buff.ly/2awVbKu)
