Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Efficacy of Biologics in Patients with Chronic KIdney Disease
A retrospective cohort study of biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) persistence in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), shows the 3 year survicval to be under 50% but that all studied biologics were nearly equivalent
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PMR - a Risk Factor for Recalcitrant Giant Cell Arteritis?
Despite the clinical similarities and treatment differences between giant cell arteritis (GCA polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), confusion exists regarding the impact of overlapping disorders.
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Cost-Effectiveness of Biosimilars vs Leflunomide
An economic evaluation of 25 099 rheumatoid arthritis patients found that treatment with biosimilar disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) were cost-effective compared with the conventional DMARD, leflunomide.
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ICYMI: Can Mycophenolate be Stopped in Stable SLE?
In patients with clinically stable systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and lupus nephritis, the withdrawal of mycophenolate mofetil was not significantly inferior to mycophenolate maintenance, but MMF withdrawal had numerically more reactivations, while MMF maintenance had more infections.
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ICYMI: Dead Words Eulogy
The trouble with rheumatology may be the words we live by. Welcome to the eulogy for rheumatology 'dead words'. We're here today to celebrate the loss of rheumatology past. These are dead words in rheumatology, words fortified unfortunately by history and habit. The lexicon of rheumatology is unique, it's challenging and it's mostly incomprehensible to those who don't know...but those are the cornerstones of the greatest of medical subspecialties.
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ICYMI: Best Imaging in Giant Cell Arteritis - US, PET, MRI?
Imaging is often instrumental in diagnosing and staging patients diagnosed with giant cell arteritis. A new study compared the diagnostic performance of Colour Duplex Ultrasound (CDUS), Fluor-18-deoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging in patients suspected of giant cell arteritis and found the CDUS had a numerically higher sensitivity (that was not statistically superior to other modalities).
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ICYMI: 2023 EULAR Psoriatic Arthritis Recommendations
EULAR has updated its treatment recommendations from the prior 2019 guidelines, since there have been several newly developed agents. The updated guidance includes 7 overarching principles and 11 recommendations regarding treatment strategy and pharmacological therapies.
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ICYMI: Hidradenitis Suppurativa-Related Autoinflammatory Syndromes
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a suppurative inflammatory skin disorder that is considered to be autoinflammatory by many. HS includes a specturm of disorders, linked by suppurative (or psoriatic) skin disease and potentially genetics. These HS-related disorders may include pyoderma gangrenosum, acne and suppurative hidradenitis, Pyogenic Arthritis, Pyoderma gangrenosum and Acne, pyogenic arthritis, PG, acne and suppurative hidradenitis, and Synovitis, Acne, Pustulosis, Hyperostosis and Osteitis, amongst others.
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ICYMI: 9 Facts about Leflunomide
Medscape has published an informative review of leflunomide, drawn from Dr. Eric Ruderman’s recent lecture on the subject at the February RWCS meeting in Maui. Here are some highpoints from this Medscape article and lecture.
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ICYMI: Enthesitis, Synovitis, and Tenosynovitis in Psoriatic Arthritis
An ultrasound study suggests that enthesitis is associated with both synovitis and tenosynovitis in patients with Psoriatic arthritis (PsA).
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