Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Steroid Sparing Effects of Methotrexate and Mycophenolate in Uveitis
Patients with noninfectious uveitis (intermediate, posterior uveitis, or panuveitis) often require high dose corticosteroids and therefore may need steroid-sparing DMARD therapy. The FAST study investigated the corticosteroid-sparing effect of methotrexate or mycophenolate mofetil in adults with noninfectious uveitis.
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Need for Pre-operative Hyperglycemia Testing Prior to Total Joint Replacement
JAMA reports on a large Medicare cohort study showing that amongst patients undergoing total joint replacement (TJR), preoperative HbA1c testing was performed in 26% to 43% of patients with diabetes and in only 5% of those without diabetes. Importantly research has shown that an elevated HbA1c level is associated with postoperative complications.
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Riociguat Fails in Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Digital Ulcers
Riociguat is an oral, selective soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator that has been studied in patients with digital ulcers (DU) due to systemic sclerosis (SSc) but study results show that short term (16 weeks) riociquat therapy does not sufficiently reduce the DU burden in SSc patients.
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Anti-IL-23 Beats IL-17 in Plaque Psoriasis
Lancet reports a head-to-head trial of antibodies against interleukin (IL)-23 and IL-17A in patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis favored guselkumab with superior PASI 90 responses at week 48 (compared to secukinumab).
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Nintedanib FDA Approved for Scleroderma Lung Disease
Last Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Ofev (nintedanib) to slow the rate of decline in pulmonary function in adults with interstitial lung disease associated with systemic sclerosis or scleroderma, called SSc-ILD. ILD as a complication of SSc may lead to progressive loss of lung function and may be associated with a significant mortality risk. Prior to the approval of Olev, there were no FDA approved drugs for SSc-ILD.
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RA Women are Less Likely to Breastfeed
A large pregnancy registry has published their results showing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who become pregnant are less likely to breastfeed compared to non-RA women from the general population, with many women stopping breastfeeding so that they could start medication, even though many of
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RheumNow Podcast – Do’s and Don’ts in Spondylitis (9.5.19)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and important research published in the last two weeks on RheumNow.com.
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Modifiable Risk Factors for Hyperuricemia
Choi and colleagues have shown that four modifiable risk factors (BMI, the DASH diet, alcohol use, and diuretic use) could individually account for a notable proportion of observed hyperuricemia.
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Respiratory Risks Not Increased in RA Patients with COPD
An insurance claims based study of RA patients with COPD shows that biologics do not have an increased rate of respiratory events compared to those on conventional DMARDs. A real world cohort of RA patients with COPD was drawn from US-based MarketScan databases. Patients on biologic DMARDs and/or targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs) were propensity matched to those on conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs).
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Weight Loss Cuts Hospital Stays for Obese TKA Patients
Morbidly obese patients who lost 20 lbs before total knee arthroplasty (TKA) cut their hospital stays by about 1 day, and were 76% less likely to have an extended hospital stay, research showed.
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