Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Systemic Steroids Reduce Mortality in COVID-19
JAMA Internal Medicine reports an analysis of COVID-19 clinical trials showing that critically ill patients with COVID-19 treated with systemic corticosteroids have an overall lower mortality rate.
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2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to the Discovery of Hepatitis C
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus. These three scientists made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis C, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world.
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RheumNow Podcast – Function Follows Form (10.2.20)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com. Regulatory approvals, update on global rheumatology alliance, smoking and psoriasis, gabapentin let down and defining difficult RA.
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Defining Difficult Rheumatoid Arthritis
‘Difficult-to-treat RA’ is an oft-used term that carries various clinical qualities and therapeutic disappointments. A EULAR Task Force was established to develop recommendations for the management of difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis and as a first step, have put forth their definition of this rheumatoid arthritis (RA) subset.
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Low Risk of Latent TB with Secukinumab
TB reactivation and latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) are warned against with biologic agents, especially TNF inhibitors; yet clinical trial data now shows that the risk of LTBI with IL-17 inhibition via secukinumab is uncommon.
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Hydroxychloroquine Fails as Pre-exposure Prophylaxis for COVID-19
Numerous previous studies have questioned the efficacy or protection afforded by hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for COVID-19 and studies have show that HCQ has failed when given as post-exposure prophylaxis to health care workers (HCWs). A new randomized controlled trial has shown that HCQ failed when given as 8 weeks of pre-exposure prophylaxis in hospital-based HCWs exposed to patients with COVID-19 patients.
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Filgotinib Approved by the EMA for Rheumatoid Arthritis
On Friday, Gilead and Galapagos announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorization for filgotinib (trade name, Jyseleca) their oral, once-daily, JAK1 inhibitor for the treatment of adults with moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have resp
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Gabapentin Fails to Lessen Chronic Pelvic Pain
Lancet reports that in a randomized, blinded, controlled trial, gabapentin failed to significantly lower pain scores in women with chronic pelvic pain, and was associated with higher adverse event rates compared to placebo.
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RheumNow Podcast – Cardiovascular Risk in Psoriatic Disease (9.25.20)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and Journal articles from the past week on RheumNow.com.
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EULAR Updated 2019 Recommendations for Psoriatic Arthritis Management
In June 2020, we failed to report on the ARD publication updating the 2019 update the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations for the pharmacological treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) - these are presented below.
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