Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Throw Me Rope
A gal with rheumatoid arthritis moved to my town and has transferred her care to me. Despite having RA for 3 years and swollen joints at the last three visits, she has taken surprisingly few effective drugs thus far.On this visit I declared my concerns for her future health, especially if we didn’t make significant changes in therapy. So I recommended she start a new drug. She asked several good questions, then stated she wanted to go home and think about this further and she would get back to me with her decision.But wait, that’s what she said at her last visit 2 months ago!
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ACR Projects Significant Manpower Shortages for 2030
Arthritis & Rheumatology has published the results of the 2015 Workforce Study of Rheumatology Specialists, and estimates a current shortage (demand > supply) of 700 (12.9%) full-time rheumatologists and that this deficit will worsen (102%) to 4133 FTE by 2030.
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Defining Refractory Rheumatoid Arthritis
Dr. Maya Buch from Leeds has a thoughtful Viewpoint article in Annals of Rheumatic Disease on how to consider and manage the refractory or difficult rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patient.
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Favorable Certolizumab Safety Profile in Pregnancy
Clowse and colleagues have published an extensive review of the certolizumab pegol (CZP) in pregnancy database, and found no evidence that CZP has a teratogenic effect or contributes to fetal harm when compared to the general population.
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RheumNow Week in Review -The Temporal Artery Biopsy Letdown (4.6.2018)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com. News on the cost of RA care, infections on planes, CV events and Sacroiliitis in IBD, NXP-2 antibodies and calcinosis and rituximab in myositis ILD patients.
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IL-6 Inhibition Most Effective in Polycyclic Systemic JIA
The German Autoinflammatory Disease (AID) registry has studied the effects of the IL-6 inhibitor tocilizumab (TCZ) in systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) patients and shown a clinical response rate of 35% during the first 12 weeks, and inactive disease and/or remission (with medication)
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Rituximab May Halt ILD in Antisynthetase Syndrome Myositis
A multicenter study assessed patients with the antisynthetase syndrome (AS) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) and found that rituximab (RTX) therapy was associated with either improved or stable pulmonary outcomes in most.
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Lancet Tackles the Global Challenge of Low Back Pain
Lancet has several reports on low back pain (LBP) as a major problem worldwide, largely because of the aging population. Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide.
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Cannabis Laws Lessen the Opioid Crisis
Three reports from JAMA Internal Medicine demonstrate favorable trends with less opioid use when cannabis became legal.
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Unmet Needs in Calcium Pyrophosphate Deposition Disease
Abhishek et al have written on the results of an international survey of crystal arthritis experts and identified the unmet needs regarding calcium pyrophosphate crystal deposition (CPPD) - research, classification, diagnosis and management.
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