Articles By Jack Cush, MD
The RheumNow Week in Review - 22 December 2017
Dr. Jack Cush reviews highlights and news from the past week on RheumNow.com.
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Allopurinol Dose Escalation is Safe with Severe CKD
Hypertension, nephrolithiasis and chronic kidney disease (CKD) commonly associates with gout. While there is a clear need to dose adjust NSAIDs and colchicine in those with CKD, there is some debate about the need to dose adjust when using allopurinol with CKD.
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Risk of Gout Onset and Flare Linked to Urate Levels
Serum uric acid (SUA) levels are clearly linked to gout. Researchers from Harvard have systemically reviewed the literature to quantify the risk of onset and flare with varying levels of SUA.
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Cannibis Weakly Effective in Neuropathic Pain
The medical use of cannabis is often extended to management of chronic pain and neuropathic pain.A metanalysis of 27 chronic pain trials show that there is low-strength evidence that cannabis alleviates neuropathic pain but insufficient evidence in other pain populations.
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Cardiac Disturbances Increased in Spondyloarthritis
A prospective Swedish study between 2001–2009 found a higher risk of aortic regurgitation, pacemaker, AV block and atrial fibrillation in SpA, AS, uSpA and PsA patients.
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Registry Efficacy of Rituximab in Refractory SLE
Despite large randomized trials failing to show the efficacy of RTX in SLE (LUNAR, EXPLORER), uncontrolled observational data suggests possible efficacy and safety of RTX in refractory SLE.
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Worldwide Trends in BMI in Children, Adolescents and Adults
Lancet reports on the analysis of 2416 studies, involving 128.9 million persons over 5 years of age shows previously rising trends in children's and adolescents' BMI have plateaued in many high-income countries, but still at high levels.
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Frequency of Rheumatoid Knee Replacements Down in the Biologic Era
A time-series analysis of incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients seen between 1996 and 2011 in the Danish National Patient Register shows that the incidence of hip (THR) and knee replacements (TKR) began to decrease after the introdution of biologic agents for RA in 2002.
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Baseline Risk Score Predicts Serious Infection Risk in TNF-Treated RA Patients
Curtis and colleagues have analyzed the certolizumab (CZP) RAPID1 and RAPID2 trials to assess the risk of serious infectious events (SIEs), and shown that steroids combined with an age-adjusted comorbidity index (AACI) yields a 2-3 fold predictable risk for SIE.
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Advantages of Intravenous Pulse Cyclophosphamide in ANCA-associated Vasculitis
Researchers from the Nottingham University Hospitals have analyzed the efficacy and safety of oral (PO) and intravenous (IV) cyclophosphamide (CTX) in ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) patients and demonstrated a trend for fewer relapses, better 1 year survival and less toxicity w
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