Articles By Jack Cush, MD
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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Neuropathic Like Knee Pain
Fernandez and colleagues have shed further light on a significant subset of patients with knee pain - specifically, those with neuropathic like knee pain (NKP) that includes those with knee pain modified by central and peripheral neurologic dysfunction.
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RheumNow Week in Review – I Wanna New Drug (9.28.18)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news from the past week on RheumNow.com, including news on inappropriate opioids, pre-clinical RA treatment, DMARDs in Gout, the decline of arthroscopy, and a pain in the mouth.
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Venous Thromboembolism Increased with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Not with TNF Inhibition
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common adverse event throughout medicine and includes both pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The cost of diagnosing a thromboembolic event is approximately $4000 - $5550, while the annual cost of treating one case of VTE is betwe
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CDC: 2017 Record Number of Influenza Deaths
The CDC reports that in 2017, influenza killed and hospitalized more people in the United States than any other year in the last few decades.
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Complementary Therapies in Psoriasis
A systematic review in Archives of Dermatology suggests that among complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, the most effective are indigo naturalis, curcumin, dietary modification, meditation, and acupuncture.
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Knee Arthroscopic Surgeries on the Decline
A JAMA Internal Medicine report has shown that the rate of arthroscopic surgery has significantly declined, in an era when arthroplasty and the incidence of osteoarthritis (OA) has increased.
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Fractures May Lead to Systemic Bone Loss
Researchers at the University of California - Davis have shown that elderly women who had an upper body fracture or multiple fractures had more loss of hip density compared to those who who did not fracture. Systemic bone loss may increase the risk of future fractures.
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