Articles By Eric Dein, MD
Obesity, Surgery, and Optimizing Patient Care
Rheumatologic care involves multidisciplinary approaches and collaboration with specialties to treat complex, systemic diseases. While many Pods at RheumNow Live are disease specific, the Pod II focused on Advancing Practice on important and emerging areas affecting rheumatologic patients. This session focused on two major areas of need: obesity and peri-operative management.
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Staying Ahead of Spondyloarthritis
The diagnosis and treatment of spondyloarthritis can present challenging clinical scenarios for rheumatologists. At RheumNow Live, Pod IV focused on "Staying Ahead of Spondyloarthritis", which reviewed diagnosis, complications and advances in SpA.
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Lupus in an empty house
The full house immunofluorescence pattern is the classic histopathologic finding of lupus and lupus nephritis. Glomerular deposits staining for IgG, IgA, IgM, C3 and C1q can help confirm a suspected diagnosis of SLE. But what about patients with negative immunofluorescence and no proliferative or membranous features?
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The Cartel is Coming for Rheumatology
"What Do Blockbuster Drugs & The Black Market All Have in Common?" asked Dr. Madelaine Feldman at RheumNow Live 2025. They thrive, she explained, on market exclusivity "... until they don't." At first glance, the pharmaceutical marketplace may not appear like a crime drug ring, but Dr. Feldman of Tulane University described how sinister forces of market manipulation have negatively impacted patient care for years.
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That's not my problem - or is it? Multimorbidity in RA
Traditionally, rheumatologists have often been deferential to the non-articular concerns in RA to other providers, though these issues are often left unaddressed. What role do rheumatologists have in the management of multimorbidity in our patients?
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ICYMI: ORAL Surveillance - Is Statin Use the Problem/Solution?
The findings from ORAL Surveillance Study have been a dominant conversation at recent ACR Convergence, with the seminal findings and subsequent analyses a target of debate. Subsequent post-hoc analyses, follow-up studies, and claims data analyses have been used to further interpret the data, though a clear answer on safety is not certain. A study presented on Sunday reported on a new post-hoc analysis that provides new insights.
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A new score to quantify GCA inflammation?
The treatment paradigm for Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) has been a binary approach to the presence or absence of vasculitis. When GCA is present, we institute high doses of glucocorticoids for treatment of the inflammatory process. This approach is not well individualized to the patient as we do not account for the degree of inflammation that may or may not be present in the disease. Improved markers to stratify the extent of inflammation can help to tailor a more personalized approach to treatment.
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ORAL Surveillance - Is Statin Use the Problem/Solution?
The findings from ORAL Surveillance Study have been a dominant conversation at recent ACR Convergence, with the seminal findings and subsequent analyses a target of debate. Subsequent post-hoc analyses, follow-up studies, and claims data analyses have been used to further interpret the data, though a clear answer on safety is not certain. A study presented on Sunday reported on a new post-hoc analysis that provides new insights.
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Is Pregnancy Truly the Solution for RA?
Pregnancy is perhaps the oldest treatment in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and has been associated with a natural improvement in disease control in 50-75% of patients. Others, however, are not as successful with unchanged disease activity or worsening of their autoimmune disease.
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ICYMI: What are the Early Stages of Lupus?
Incomplete lupus? Undifferentiated connective tissue disease? Pre-clinical autoimmune disease? During the lupus pod at RheumNow Live 2024, Dr. David Karp discussed the spectrum of autoimmune disease and the confusing terminology that is used with the complex world of early autoimmune disease. He cautioned against the traditional use of phrases such as incomplete lupus or undifferentiated connective tissue disease, which are heterogeneous and poorly defined.
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