Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma
Systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma (ssSSc), which accounts for nearly 10% of systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients and was first described in 1962, is a subset of SSc.
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Pollution and Autoimmunity (7.12.2024)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
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PNAS & Nature Insights into Lupus Pathogenesis
Two prominent medical journals this week published new insights into the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with both inidicating promient roles for T cells in what is a classically viewed as a humoral (B cell) disorder.
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Progress in SLE with new mRNA CAR-T cell Trial
Cartesian Therapeutics, has announced their first-in-class mRNA-engineered chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (mRNA CAR-T) therapy has been given to the first systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE). patient in a Phase 2 open-label clinical trial.
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Efficacy of Biologics in Patients with Chronic KIdney Disease
A retrospective cohort study of biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) persistence in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), shows the 3 year survicval to be under 50% but that all studied biologics were nearly equivalent
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PMR - a Risk Factor for Recalcitrant Giant Cell Arteritis?
Despite the clinical similarities and treatment differences between giant cell arteritis (GCA polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), confusion exists regarding the impact of overlapping disorders.
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Cost-Effectiveness of Biosimilars vs Leflunomide
An economic evaluation of 25 099 rheumatoid arthritis patients found that treatment with biosimilar disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) were cost-effective compared with the conventional DMARD, leflunomide.
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ICYMI: Can Mycophenolate be Stopped in Stable SLE?
In patients with clinically stable systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and lupus nephritis, the withdrawal of mycophenolate mofetil was not significantly inferior to mycophenolate maintenance, but MMF withdrawal had numerically more reactivations, while MMF maintenance had more infections.
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ICYMI: Dead Words Eulogy
The trouble with rheumatology may be the words we live by. Welcome to the eulogy for rheumatology 'dead words'. We're here today to celebrate the loss of rheumatology past. These are dead words in rheumatology, words fortified unfortunately by history and habit. The lexicon of rheumatology is unique, it's challenging and it's mostly incomprehensible to those who don't know...but those are the cornerstones of the greatest of medical subspecialties.
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ICYMI: Best Imaging in Giant Cell Arteritis - US, PET, MRI?
Imaging is often instrumental in diagnosing and staging patients diagnosed with giant cell arteritis. A new study compared the diagnostic performance of Colour Duplex Ultrasound (CDUS), Fluor-18-deoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging in patients suspected of giant cell arteritis and found the CDUS had a numerically higher sensitivity (that was not statistically superior to other modalities).
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