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

Osteoarthritis and Bone Disorders

Spine Surgery May not Be Needed to Ease Back Pain from Osteoporosis

Lisa Rapaport  |  

(Reuters Health)—Patients with acute pain from osteoporosis damage to the spine don’t experience any more relief from surgery to inject cement into cracked or broken vertebrae than they would with a sham procedure, a recent trial in The Netherlands suggests. All of the patients in the experiment had compression fractures, which can happen when osteoporosis…

Healthcare Providers Should Encourage Exercise for OA Patients

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A systemic review supports the ideas that exercise benefits the physical and mental health of patients experiencing pain related to hip and/or knee osteoarthritis (OA). Overall, research indicates that patients who exercised had slightly lower rates of pain and greater physical function, as well as slightly improved self-efficacy and social function…

How Footwear Affects Patients with Medial Knee Osteoarthritis

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A patient’s gait, or how they walk, is an important predictor of the biomechanical load distribution that affects osteoarthritis (OA). This understanding comes from a growing body of literature in bio­mechanics to test and treat patients with OA, which takes into account a very practical treatment: a patient’s shoes. A focus on flexible footwear, along…

Romosozumab Has Biggest BMD Benefit in First Year of Treatment

Anne Harding  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Romosozumab shows smaller benefits for increasing bone mineral density (BMD) in the second year of treatment compared to the first, new research suggests. The extension of a phase 2 study in postmenopausal women with low bone mass also found BMD decreased sharply when patients on romosozumab were switched to placebo after two…

Existing CT Scans as Good as DXA for Assessing Hip Fracture Risk

Scott Baltic  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—A “biomechanical” analysis of a previously taken pelvic or abdominal computed tomography (CT) scan is at least as accurate in assessing an individual’s hip fracture risk as a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan, according to new research. This accuracy of the hip bone mineral density (BMD) T-score as measured by the biomechanical…

RA Patients May Not Receive Needed Osteoporosis Screening & Treatment

Arthritis Care & Research  |  

New research examined the frequency of osteoporosis screening and treatment for RA patients from 2003–2014, including four years following the release of the 2010 ACR guideline on glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis prevention and treatment. The results: Approximately half of RA patients for whom treatment was indicated never received osteoporosis medication. Researchers also found that RA patients, despite their increased risk for developing osteoporosis, were not more likely to receive osteoporosis care than OA patients…

Study Urges Caution with Steroid Injections for Hip Osteoarthritis

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For patients with hip osteoarthritis (OA), pain management and maintaining function are primary therapy goals. Current guidelines offer recommendations on nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic approaches to addressing these issues in hip OA. For patients in whom pharmacologic management is considered, the use of intra-articular steroid injections is one option. In its 2012 guidelines (the most current…