Video: Every Case Tells a Story| Webinar: ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

U.S. Drug Benefit Managers Clamp Down on Specialty Pharmacies

Caroline Humer & Deena Beasley  |  

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters)—In recent days, the largest U.S. managers of private prescription drug benefits have cut off at least eight pharmacies that work closely with drugmakers, intensifying scrutiny of a system that helps inflate drug prices, officials at the benefit managers told Reuters. The terminations come from payers who together manage drug benefits for…

Bronchial Tissue Immune Activation Seen in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis

Reuters Staff  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Patients with untreated early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) show signs of immune activation and local inflammation in their bronchial tissues, researchers from Sweden report. Previous studies have shown that patients with RA have shared citrullinated epitopes in the lungs and joints, as well as anticitrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), suggesting…

Health Video Games Spark Interest, Try to Gain Traction

  |  

In the late 1990s, Thomas Baranowski, PhD, professor of pediatrics specializing in nutrition at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, applied for a grant. For years, he had been interested in finding ways to get children to change their diet and physical activity. He decided to try a video game, and he got the money…

Improve RA Care with Vitamin D

Dewan K. Fahima, DO, & Rafah Salloum, MD  |  

Background Autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythema­tous, occur when the body attacks its own tissue because it cannot differentiate between self and non-self. This is mainly through deregulation of the immune system. Vitamin D has been known to play a critical role in bone mineralization and bone health. Activated vitamin…

Rheumatology Case Report: When Moyamoya Disease Mimicks Primary Central Nervous System Vasculitis

Joey Kim, MD, Megha Patel-Banker, MD, Matthew Abramson, MD, Mehwish Bilal, MD, Sanjay Godhwani, MD, Asha Patnaik, MD, Heidi Roppelt, MD, & Qingping Yao, MD  |  

Case report: A 60-year-old Hispanic male with poorly controlled hypertension was sent from the primary care clinic for evaluation of malignant hypertension with a systolic blood pressure above 200 mmHg. His symptoms at the time of presentation included episodic confusion, worsening vision and an unsteady gait. A head computed tomography (CT) scan showed a subacute…

Rheumatologist Steven S. Overman Reflects on His Last Day of Practice, Future of Specialty

Steven S. Overman, MD, MPH • illustrations by Alice C. Gray  |  

I am a few weeks post-retirement. Having written thank you notes and completed urgent home projects, I swing in a hammock at our currently fire-threatened cabin north of Winthrop, Wash., and reflect. I feel like a young boy while freely flipping pages of a hand-scribed picture book, The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman. She…

Diagnostic Criteria Released for Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorders

  |  

Recent updates to criteria used for diagnosing neuromyelitis optica (NMO) are aimed at helping physicians make the differential diagnosis of this disorder differentiating it from other inflammatory disorders—a diagnosis that can be difficult given the presenting symptoms that can mimic a number of other conditions, such as multiple sclerosis. Published in July 2015, the new…

Fellows’ Forum Case Report: Palmar Fasciitis & Polyarthritis Syndrome

Naveen Raj, DO, MPH, Marc Kesselman, DO, & Barry Waters, MD  |  

Case report: A 78-year-old Caucasian female presented to our outpatient rheumatology clinic with pain in her bilateral shoulders, hands and knees that began suddenly one month earlier. She admitted to stiffness in her hands lasting several hours, and expressed an inability to extend her fingers. She denied fever, rashes, jaw claudication, headache or visual changes….

Research in Temporal Arteritis Suggests Link with Infection, Autoimmune Disease

Shamik Bhattacharyya, MD, MS  |  

Temporal arteritis was first described by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson in 1890 in an elderly retired gentleman’s servant who developed red, painful streaks on his temples and was found to have bilaterally swollen temporal arteries with feeble pulses.1 Sir Hutchinson disputed the suggestion that the red streaks were caused by the man’s hat and, instead, called…