Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Best Labs for Still’s Disease
There is no “test” (blood or other) that is solely diagnostic of Still’s disease, but labs can help make a diagnosis or manage disease, and affirm the safety of drugs in use.
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U.S. News & World Report’s 2022–23 Rheumatology Rankings
The Johns Hopkins Hospital has repeated its top rank among US Rheumatology centers - ranking #1 for the 18th year in a row, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2022–23 Best Hospitals list released yesterday.
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TREAT EARLIER Study - Is MTX Intevention in Pre-Clinical RA Warranted?
Management of arthralgias before a certified rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis is challenging - should one use DMARD therapy before clinically evident synovitis in a preemptive effort to avoid or forestall the diagnosis or damage of RA?
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Mitochondria as Master Regulators of Inflammation
Mitochondrial constituents and metabolic products may give rise to immune activation; this is especially true for mitochondrial DNA, which can function as damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) leading to inflammasome activation.
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Treatment Options for Still's Disease
Are you treating “systemic” or “articular” (arthritis) Still’s disease? Most Still’s patients have a dominance of one or the other. With certainty, the right therapy for the right symptoms can be chosen. What about patients who have an incomplete or no response, or who become unresponsive to a drug that once worked well?
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Early, Aggressive and Seropositive (7.22.2022)
Dr. Jack Cush covers the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com. This week we have Insights NAFLD, overdose deaths, septic arthritis, refractory stills, & when MTX doesn’t work.
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Treating Enthesitis in Psoriatic Arthritis Patients
A large prospective psoriatic arthritis (PsA) study examined the enthesitis outcomes when PsA patients received conventional (cDMARDs) or targeted disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (tDMARDs) and showed an overall 86% response rates, regardless of the medication used.
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Continue the Methotrexate, Leave the Cannoli
Placebo responses are to be expected in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) clinical trials, but are such placebo responses affected by continuing background DMARDs like methotrexate (MTX) even though there was an inadequate response (IR) to MTX?
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Spinal Findings on MRI May Not Signify Spondyloarthritis
For about one in six people considered healthy with no reports of back pain, lesions were visible on MRI in the lower spinal column and sacroiliac joint, researchers said -- a sign that rheumatologists should be cautious about diagnosing spondyloarthritis (SpA) on the basis of imaging.
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Abatacept Most Effective Early and in Seropositive RA
An open-label, 2 year study evaluated the efficacy and safey (drug retention) of subcutaneous (SC) abatacept (ABA) in active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and showed superior responses when ABA was given to biologic-naive and seropositive RA patients.
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