Two large RA registries have shown that pregnancy outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients is more related to RA disease activity rather than treatments use to control RA. 

Analysis of the Swedish Rheumatology Quality Register abd the Danish clinical quality register (DANBIO) sought to link specific to pregnancy outcomes, especially preterm birth (PTB) and small for gestational age (SGA), to RA disease activity and anti-rheumatic treatment before and during pregnancy.

The ACR has updated this guideline and includes recommendations on abaloparatide (PTHrP) and romosozumab, which are newly available since the ACR’s 2017 GIOP guideline.

It also addresses sequential therapy, which was not addressed in the past. Patients need to understand that when beginning a course of denosumab (DEN), teriparatide (PTH), abaloparatide (PTHrP), or romosozumab, they will need additional therapy after these drugs are discontinued.

Dr. Beth Wallace and colleagues at the University of Michigan surveyed a national sample of older adults (50–80 yrs) and found that 70% currently report experiencing joint pain and 60% reported being told by a health care professional that they have arthritis. 

Findings of a new study suggest a causal effect between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and psoriasis (PSO) as well as psoriatic arthritis (PsA), but not vice versa.

A mendelian randomization study based on genome-wide association studies including up to 463 372 European individuals found a positive association between IBD (especially Crohn's colitis) and psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.  The data analysis was performed from April to May 2022.

Samples included 12 882 IBD and 5621 PSO cases. Genetically predicted IBD was associated with higher risk of:

A systematic review suggests that low-dose methotrexate (MTX) use is associated with an increased melanoma risk, but the absolute risk increase could be considered negligible.

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New report examines access, affordability, and activity and lifestyle factors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, evaluating how easy it is to live with a rheumatic disease in your state. No state scored an "A" or "F", and only two states improved their 2018 grades.

About half of patients with steroid-dependent polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) were able to get off steroids altogether when they were started on tocilizumab (Actemra) infusions, which also improved disease control in most cases, a randomized phase III trial showed.

In a 24-week study, 49.0% of patients assigned to the interleukin (IL)-6 inhibitor were no longer taking prednisone at their final evaluation, compared with 19.6% of a placebo group, according to Valérie Devauchelle-Pensec, MD, PhD, of Hôpital de la Cavale Blanche in Brest, France, and colleagues.

The Annals of Internal Medicine has published a study showing online yoga education and an unsupervised yoga program may improve physical function did not improve knee pain after 12 weeks and 24 weeks.

The study included 212 adults with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis who were randomized to either online osteoarthritis information (control or yoga therapy (access to an unsupervised online yoga program delivered via prerecorded videos over 12 weeks).

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that general practitioners actively screen and identify anxiety and depression in all adult patients under 65 yrs.

The USPSTF was appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, and has been working on this guideline since before the pandemic.

What may seem like a prudent approach to treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in pregnant women actually represents an overabundance of caution, suggested researchers who found no increased risk from tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors.

Short-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is associated with a first-time hospitalisation for heart failure in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2022.

Using long-term patient data from the BARFOT study of early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, researchers at the Karolinska Institute have shown that use of the ACR-1987 classification criteria was highly precise.

The BARFOT (Better Anti-Rheumatic PharmacOTherapy) study enrolled early RA patients. This analysis included 2543 patients with at least 4 follow-up visits after initial enrollment and assessment by rheumatologists.  Patients were assessed for diagnosis vs. misdiagnosis using the ACR-1987 classification criteria.

While it is known that smoking ups the risk of developing RA, its effect on outcomes in those with established rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is less known.  A report from an early arthritis registry shows that current smoking increases disease activity and lowers health-related quality of life.

The report from Drs. Alfredsson, Klareskog, and Hedström appears in the current issue of Arthritis Care & Research.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) may start in adolescence and extend into adulthood. This report of the Nordic experience shows that both pediatric and adulty rheumatologists need to develop "transition" practices; without such an approach considerable gaps in healthcare will befall these JIA patients. 

Their study population included 408 JIA patients with a disease onset from 1997 to 2000 and who attended an this Nordic JIA clinic. Their review disclosed 3 patterns (subgroups):

Hamilton, ON (Oct. 4, 2022) – Patients can recover from orthopedic surgery just as well without using opioid-based painkillers, says a McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Study results showed that by prescribing a combination of three non-opioid painkillers to patients, researchers successfully reduced approximately tenfold the amounts of opioids consumed over a six-week post-operative period, without altering their pain levels.