Articles By Jack Cush, MD
EULAR Guidance on Patient Adherence to Meds
Non-adherence may be the single most untold risk to suboptimal outcomes in the care of musculoskeletal disease. It has been estimated that 30-80% of patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) are nonadherent to prescribed regimens. EULAR has commissioned a task force
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Zoomatology – Present in Absentia
Are you a zoomatologist or a doomsatologist? Zoom has replaced the meeting, the teleconference or the board meeting. If your old meetings were bad, then your replacement zoom meetings will also be bad, if not worse. Largely because you have failed to master the medium. Here are the new rules of Zoom.
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20,21 Whatever it Takes
Amazingly, we made it through 2020, a most forgettable year. Life was great in the first 3 months of 2020, and then COVID hit the fan and a pandemic steamroller derailed life as we knew it.
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COVID-19 Vaccination - Phase Ib Begins
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a timeline guidance document on when, how and who should get the commercially available COVID-19 vaccines.
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Telemedicine Less Utilized in the South and Urban Areas
MMWR has reported on a July 2020 survey study from 1,009 Health Resources and Services Administration–funded health centers showing that urban Health centers were more likely to provide virtual visits than those in rural areas.
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Plaquenil Does Not Protect Lupus Patients from COVID-19 (Best of 2020)
Annals of Rheumatic Disease reports on an analysis of lupus (SLE) patients that shows COVID-19 infection rates were similar between those lupus patients who were taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and those not taking HCQ.
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Update on Polymyalgia Rheumatica and Giant Cell Arteritis (Best of 2020)
JAMA has published a clinical update of recent studies on GCA. While PET/CT scanning are novel means of demonstrating activity, they have not changed the diagnostic approach to GCA or PMR and although there are no new proven treatment strategies for PMR beyond glucocorticoids, the FDA has approved tocilizumab as a first-line glucocorticoid-sparing agent.
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ACR 2020 Reproductive Guidelines - Medication Use with Pregnancy (Best of 2020)
The ACR has published guidelines to manage reproductive health issues in rheumatic disease (RMD) patients before, during and after pregnancy. In this second excerpt from their guidelines articles, we present recommendations (and good clinical practice statements) for paternal rheumatology medication use by men with RMD and on conventional rheumatology medications and biologic use in pregnancy for women with RMD.
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ACR 2020 Reproductive Guidelines - Lactation Guidance (Best of 2020)
In this third excerpt from the ACR guidelines on managing reproductive health issues in rheumatic disease patients, we present recommendations regarding the use of glucocorticoids and guidance on lactation and medication use post-partum.
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Best of 2020: New EULAR/ACR Classification Criteria for SLE
The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) have jointly developed new classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE); prompted by the need for criteria that were both highly sensitive and specific. The net result is improved sensitivity and specificity, but the use of positive ANA requirement along with a longer list of weighted criteria ensures its utility in SLE research (including early or latent SLE), but not clinical practice.
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