The Health Assessment Questionnaire is a utilitarian outcome measure, often used in clinical trials and daily practice. Unless you’re still prescribing penacillamine, never attended an ACR meeting, and never read an RA clinical trial, you’re quite familiar with the HAQ and its use in practice. So, surely you’ve heard of the “Brooklyn HAQ”?

Since the introduction of TNF inhibitors nearly 20 years ago, concerns over a potential associated cancer risk have abounded. The recent ACR RA treatment guidelines have addressed this recently, stating that patients with any solid tumor cancer or risk thereof should be treated as if they had no such solid tumor. Meaning that biologics clearly do not affect solid cancer outcomes.

Researchers from Bristol, UK have published a Cochrane review studying the effects of biologic therapies on fatigue. Based on a review of the electronic literature and randomised controlled trials they found that biologic interventions in patients with active RA can lead to a small to moderate improvement in fatigue.

While hyperuricemia is linked to gout and many of the elements that make up the metabolic syndrome, it's not so clear that hyperuricemia is an independant risk factor for hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular outcomes, etc.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute have studied their prospective Swedish Rheumatology register to examine the role of a family history of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on clinical presentation or treatment responses.  Family history is defined as RA in a first-degree relative.

Prevalent patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) face a 30–50% increased risk of acute coronary, cerebrovascular, and thromboembolic events compared with the general population. But although an AS diagnosis appears to increase relative risk for cardiovascular events, that increase is not as great as the relative risk observed among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

  Dr. Cush reviews highlights published this week at RheumNow.com.

French researchers recruited 486 patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) from over 40 centers throughout France, and compared their outcomes to age and sex matched individuals randomly selected from the general population. Both groups were followed for 5 years and assessed for the risk of serious infections.

In a variety of models, testosterone has been shown to be immunosuppressive and deficiency of testosterone has been linked with autoimmune disease and increases in C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor, and interleukin-6 (IL-6). There have been no studies to examine the association between low levels of testosterone and autoimmunity.

A substantial, but unclear, percentage of patients presenting with new onset inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) will spontaneously remit, while others may persist and develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Researchers with the Norfolk Arthritis Register (NOAR) assessed the frequency of remission in IP patients assessed at baseline and years 1, 2, 3 and 5. Remission was defined as no tender or swollen joints.

It was at the end of the visit with the patient I've only seen three or four times for her osteoarthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and back pain. 

At the EULAR 2016 meeting, new EULAR recommendations for the management of Behçet's disease (BD) were presented. These were developed by a multidisciplinary expert committee that reviewed the evidence from the medical literature and developed final set of 9 recommendations:

I recognized the tone in his voice. I recognized the clipped words and the unmistakable undertone of bother and dismay. I recognized them because I have had the same tone, the same clipped speech and latent frustration in my voice: and now I was on the receiving end of this undercurrent of impatience. It took my recent stint as a patient to make me realize how important the call from the patient can be.

Accepting a single pharmaceutical industry-sponsored meal was associated with higher rates of prescribing certain drugs to Medicare patients by physicians, with more, and costlier, meals associated with greater increases in prescribing, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The EULAR Annual European Congress of Rheumatology meeting was held in London from June 8-11, 2016 and was well attended by thousands. This year’s meeting had over 2,000 poster displays, and the EULAR 2016 Congress presented new recommendations on the management of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, and fibromyalgia.