A study investigating sarilumab’s effects on patients with COVID-19 has begun in New York. The treatment blocks IL-6, which may play a role in the respiratory distress caused by the virus…
On Dec. 30, 2019, an ophthalmologist named Li Wenliang notified his colleagues about an illness that was reminiscent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in a city in the Hubei province of China called Wuhan. As an ophthalmologist, this was not directly relevant to his practice; he merely wanted to warn colleagues that they might…
Hundreds of physicians and practice managers gathered Feb. 28–Mar. 1 in Houston at the annual meeting of the State of Texas Association of Rheumatologists to hear clinical updates, obtain practice management tips and get to know their peers.
ATLANTA—Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), a subset of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) disease, can be a fatal result of rheumatic disease. But there’s good news: New therapeutic options for refractory MAS targeting individual cytokines are emerging. At the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting, possible therapeutic options were presented during a pediatric-focused clinical and translational research track, Therapeutic Approaches…
ATLANTA—With more than 3,000 abstracts from 103 countries presented at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting in November, it was impossible for attendees to view them all. However, two ACR/ARP veterans—Arthur Kavanaugh, MD, from the University of California, San Diego, and John Cush, MD, from UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas—chose to tackle the nearly impossible task and…
ATLANTA—A key goal for rheumatology researchers and clinicians is to predict through specific biomarkers if someone will, at some point in their future, develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA). If so, the disease could be prevented or stopped before the inflammation and ravaging begins, explained researchers during a Basic Science lecture at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting…
(Reuters)—Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Tuesday it had identified hundreds of antibodies that could treat or prevent the coronavirus (COVID-19) and was preparing to begin clinical trials by early summer, sending the drugmaker’s shares up 12%. The company will select the top two antibodies to develop a “cocktail” treatment and scale up its manufacturing to…
Effective immediately, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has stated it will not impose any noncompliance penalties under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) on physicians using any non-public facing service or audio or video communication technology (e.g., Apple FaceTime, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc.) for telehealth services. This discretion applies to telehealth…