Watch Dr. Jack Cush cover ten highlights from this week on RheumNow.com.
Where do your patients sit? Have you noticed they don't usually sit where you expect them to? What's up with that, and is there a psychology behind one's choice of seating? This curious observation may portend the nature of the physician-patient relationship or, at the very least, impact the layout of your next clinic.
Numerous guidelines (ACR, ACIP/CDC, ATS, NICE) all call for timely vaccinations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and those receiving immunosuppressives or biologics.
Dixon and colleagues in the UK assessed the level of adherence to these guidelines in the UK, specifically looking at the uptake of influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations in patients with RA.
Alpha defensins are released following apoptosis, necrosis, or netosis of human neutrophils. They are taken up by other cells and microbes, wherein they permeablize membranes and kill microbes and host cells. Thus, they augment the antimicrobial capacity of macrophages and at the same time inhibit the biosynthesis of proinflammatory cytokines.
The five do's and don'ts when it comes to vaccinating your patients.
Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a rare neurological disorder with many associations or causative factors that rarely includes autoimmune disorders and lupus.
Amidst a stringent regulatory environment, and with the rising use and abuse of narcotics and increasing regulation limiting narcotic analgesic use, the FDA approved (August 2015) the use of extended-release oxycodone in children (11 to 16 years old) with severe, "around-the-clock" pain who have had an insufficient response to shorter acting opioids.
Markusse and investigators from The Netherlands have reported their 10 year results of treating early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients using targeted treatment strategies.
Google Images is a treasure trove of photos and drawings about medicine. The pictures of RA, though, look as if nothing happened in the last 90 years: the field stagnant, gold the gold standard, biologicals never invented, ulnar deviation rampant and joint destruction inevitable. If early recognition of inflammatory disease is at the crux of modern treatment, why show end-stage disease except as a warning?
Harvey and coworkers reported the results of subjects followed in the Reykjavik study, demonstrating that a first osteoporotic fracture was followed by an increased risk for a second fracture, both immediately and over time.
Choi and colleagues analyzed US hospitalizations (2009–2013) to assess the frequency and racial distribution of patients hospitalized with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN) related to the use of urate-lowering (ULT) therapy (predominantly allopurinol). (Citation source http://buff.ly/269RMHy)
Danish researchers studied a cohort of 59,423 mild psoriasis and 11,566 severe psoriasis patients over a 14 year period, and found 240 and 50 cases of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), repectively. (Citation source http://buff.ly/1YxGpDA)
Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus are at risk of cardiovascular events early in the course of disease -- and even before their lupus is diagnosed, an international study found.
Video recap of highlights from this week at RheumNow.com.
Three articles (2 studies, 1 commentary) in this week's issue of NEJM tackle the issue of whether fusion adds anything to long-term outcomes in those undergoing decompression for lumbar spinal fusion.
