Articles By Jack Cush, MD
Women with Rheumatic Disease (11.4.2022)
Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal articles from this past week on RheumNow.com. New regulatory decisions about JAK inhibitors and why do women with rheumatic diseases have unfair outcomes?
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SLE T2T - Lupus Low Disease Activity State Predicts Outcomes
Treat-to-target management of SLE has been shown to protect against organ damage and to improve quality of life. Now a prospective study shows that T2T with a goal of lupus low disease activity state and remission has been shown to improve mortality risk.
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Can You Withdraw Ixekizumab in Stable Axial Spondyloarthritis?
Remission often invites consideration of drug withdrawal in patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA).
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Lack of Gender Equity in Academic Rheumatology
Evidence on gender equity in academic rheumatology in Europe is currently limited. This knowledge gap has a direct effect on the ability of professional bodies to improve gender equity. To address this, EULAR designed a study using web-based surveys to collect information; here are the results.
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Excessive Alcohol-Related Deaths in US Adults
Alcohol consumption is a leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. A JAMA cross-sectional study suggests that between 2015 and 2019, an estimated 1 in 8 total deaths among U.S. adults ages 20 to 64 were attributable to excessive alcohol use, including 1 in 5 deaths among adults ages 20 to 49.
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EMA Crack Down on JAK Inhibitors
The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA's) safety committee (PRAC) has issued a recommendation that the use of oral JAK inhibitors (tofacitinib, baricitinib, upadacitinib and filgotinib) be limited to certain at-risk patients unless no other suitable treatment alternatives are available.
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From the Archives: Rheumatology Dead Word Cemetery
I recently heard of a secondary school assignment wherein students were challenged to “bury” a word that was no longer useful or appropriate. Their exercise has now evolved into an unofficial RheumNow task force to retire diagnostic terms that have grown into misuse in rheumatology and medicine. How did we decide which words should perish? And by what criteria? Who has the final say?
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Infections & Lupus (10.28.2022)
Dr. Jack Cush discusses the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow. This week more lupus nephritis, more drug induced lupus and more lupus infections that may kill.
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Infection: a Leading Cause of Death in Lupus
Analysis of a national database of hospital discharges from Spain shows that infections accounted for 25% of lupus deaths, making infection the most common cause of death in SLE.
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Increasing Prevalence of RA, PsA and AS in the UK
Electronic health record (EHR) database analysis from the United Kingdom suggests an increasing number of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and axial spondyloarthritits (SpA) patients in England.
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