Experts in rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular health and education have joined forces to create a video intervention designed to help patients understand their risks for heart attack and stroke, as well as how to reduce these risks. Early research into this educational intervention shows the video is effective…
Many patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) report pain despite excellent control of inflammation with immunotherapies. Variable degrees of coexisting fibromyalgia (FM) may explain this disparity. RA patients who have the highest 2011 ACR FM survey criteria scores appear to share neurobiologic features consistently observed in FM patients. This study is the first to provide neuroimaging evidence that RA is a mixed pain state, with many patients’ symptoms being related to the central nervous system rather than to classic inflammatory mechanisms…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in patients with early undifferentiated arthritis, researchers from France report. Several studies have suggested that conventional or biological DMARDs might interfere with the pathogenic process and prevent more established forms of RA, but it remains unclear whether these drugs are…
After total hip or knee arthroplasty, flares are common in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a recently published study.1 Higher disease activity at baseline appears to be linked to flares, but use of such medications as biologics and methotrexate did not independently predict flaring. “Contrary to the notion that patients with established RA…
Patients with a specific genetic predisposition for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may want to take precautions when consuming certain types of meat, dairy and produce grown with cow manure, according to a new study out of the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando. The study, which assessed 100 RA patients, published in the journal Frontiers…
Preventing adverse outcomes in individuals who have rheumatic diseases is a daily goal for rheumatologists. For example, rheumatologists prescribe medications and perform screening to prevent erosions in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), renal failure in systemic lupus erythematosus and flares across all diseases. Many of these actions are classified as secondary or tertiary prevention, because individuals have…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Effective pharmacotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is not associated with meaningful improvements in mental health, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis. “We were surprised by the small effect sizes for mental-health outcomes across all of the treatments included in this review, but particularly for the anti-TNF versus disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD)…
New research examines the adherence rates for system-level performance measures in Canada. Using data from the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort that spanned eight years, researchers determined the percentage of RA patients seen in yearly follow-up with the number of gaps between visits, the percentage of RA patients treated with a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug and number days from diagnosis to the initiation of treatment. The results: High adherence to system-level performance measures was found in this early RA cohort, with small declines in performance with the increasing length overtime…
New research is translating the molecular signals in RA patients to better understand the earliest signs of disease. The work on using these signs to test the effects of RA treatment may help rheumatologists determine the most effective treatment for individuals…
Since they were first introduced in 2011, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have become an important treatment for an expanding list of advanced cancers. Some concerns have been raised around the mechanism of action of these immunotherapy agents, making their use in rheumatic diseases (RD) problematical. An article in the March 2018 issue of Arthritis &…