Could your lupus patients benefit from limiting exposure to chemicals at home and in the medical environment? It’s a strong possibility, according to the preliminary findings of a research team investigating DNA methylation disruption in patients with SLE…
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 &…
Baltimore—Rheumatologists and meteorologists share more in common than you might suspect, said Dr. Rebecca Manno, assistant professor of medicine for the Division of Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and assistant director of the Johns Hopkins Vasculitis Center. At a March 8 meeting of the Maryland Society for the Rheumatic Diseases, Dr. Manno used the…
Calciphylaxis is a poorly understood and life-threatening ischemic vasculopathy characterized by calcification of the small- and medium-size arteries in the skin, subcutaneous tissue and internal organs, which leads to thrombosis, tissue necrosis and painful skin ulcerations that won’t heal. The disease has a 50–80% mortality rate. Although affected patients typically have end-stage renal disease (ESRD)…
Immunoglobin G4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a rare fibro-inflammatory disease of unknown etiology that has been recently recognized. It can cause fibro-inflammatory masses in almost every organ of the body and is associated with dense lymphoplasmacytic infiltration of IgG4-postitive plasma cells, storiform fibrosis and elevated levels of serum IgG4.1 IgG4-RD is a systemic disease that may…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Subcutaneous belimumab improves outcomes in anti-dsDNA-positive hypocomplementemic patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), according to results from a Phase 3 randomized, controlled trial. Intravenous belimumab is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of patients with active, autoantibody-positive SLE who are receiving standard…
New research raises questions about the cardiovascular safety of febuxostat for gout patients compared with allopurinol. The study found that although febuxostat was noninferior to allopurinol, febuxostat-treated patients had similar overall rates of major adverse cardiovascular events as allopurinol-treated patients, but had higher rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality…
This past June, a 64-year-old man with a history of psoriatic arthritis and severe arthritis appeared at our clinic for his regular follow-up with concerns about a letter from his insurance company. The letter stated the company wouldn’t pay for the patient’s secukinumab (i.e., Cosentyx) prescription anymore and suggested he take ixekizumab (i.e., Taltz) instead,…
The year was 1978. I was a newly married, 25-year-old registered nurse working on a medical unit at Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh, Wis. I began to notice morning stiffness, increasing fatigue, and bilateral heel and ankle pain. Every step hurt as I walked down the halls to care for my patients. My diagnosis was…
As medical and recreational marijuana becomes more accessible, researchers seek creative ways to study the cannabis plant and explore the complexities of the endocannabinoid system in pain relief. Rheumatologists currently face an influx of patients asking if marijuana can help them. Here’s a look at the evolving research on cannabinoids for rheumatologic pain management and how doctors are discussing it with their patients…