Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Anxiety and Depression are Common in Arthritis Patients
The high prevalence of symptoms of anxiety and depression among adults with arthritis warrants awareness, screening, and subsequent treatment of these conditions.
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RheumNow Week in Review – Vitamin D Falls Again (10.4.18)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news from the past week on RheumNow.com.
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Vitamin D Fails to Improve Bone Health
The current edition of Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology suggests that neither vitamin D supplementation, nor dose, will improve bone density or prevent fractures in adults.
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Predictive Risk Factors for Uveitis in JIA
Researchers from Germany have studied a large cohort of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) patients and shown that JIA disease activity scores and laboratory biomarkers could be used to better define the group of JIA patients at high risk of uveitis onset.
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Zolendronic Acid Benefits Elder Women with Osteopenia
The NEJM reports that zolendronic acid was shown to significantly lower the risk of nonvertebral or vertebral fragility fractures in older women with osteopenia.
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Excess Mortality in CTD or Systemic Vasculitis Patients
The Norwegian connective tissue disease (CTD) and systemic vasculitis (PSV) registry (NOSVAR) studied patient outcomes over a 15 year period and found overall mortality to be higher in the CTD compared to the PSV group.
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Elder Rheumatoids Less Likely to Receive Biologics
Multiple studies have shown that elderly rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients tend to be under-treated and receive DMARD therapies less often than younger RA patients.
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Does Gender Make a Difference in Axial Spondyloarthritis
Males and females can both be affected by axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). A recent study shows that while there are some differences and similarities, HLA-B27 and imaging are still pivotal elements for diagnosis of axSpA in both genders.
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Long-Term Efficacy of Canakinumab in Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis
Only inhibitors of IL-1 (canakinumab) and IL-6 (tocilizumab) are FDA approved for use in children with systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA). Now, long-term data from the extension studies from two phase III studies shows that canakinumab yields long-term improvements with reduced glucocorticoid dosing with no new safety findings with long-term use.
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Defining Refractory Rheumatoid Arthritis
Researchers from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics (BSRBR) set out to define under what circumstances will rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients manifest biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) refractory disease.
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