As if the fatigue, joint pain, etc., were not enough, new research has found many lupus patients must contend with clinical depression as well—something that can have a devastating cascade effect on other areas of their lives. Are adults with childhood-onset lupus at greater risk of depression than lupus patients with onset of disease during…
Understanding rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) is an understandably tall order for the lay public, what with the huge number of conditions and the complex—and often little understood—processes involved. Now, a working group of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the ACR has set out to try to correct this problem with a definition…
Through much of the 20th century, dedicated rheumatic disease units were found in hospitals across the U.S. and countries around the world. In the latter part of the century, this began to change, with hospitals moving toward the consult model of care for rheumatic patients. This change reflects larger shifts in the medical world toward…
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are the most used drugs for acute and chronic pain. More than 30 billion doses of NSAIDs are consumed annually from more than 70 million prescriptions.1 Despite their common use, NSAIDs are not free of serious toxicities. In the pre-Vioxx (rofecoxib) era, gastrointestinal toxicity was the primary concern for many NSAIDs….
In the past nine years, visits to the emergency department by gout patients have increased by almost 27%. Researchers suggest physicians may not adequately be addressing the burden of gout and the underlying accumulation of uric acid, driving the dramatic increase in emergency department visits in the U.S…
ACR members are realizing what they have at their fingertips—a registry fully staffed with knowledgeable people ready to help them succeed under MIPS. This valuable resource allows members to do what they do best: Treat patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which is one of the primary goals of the Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness (RISE)…
Audit activity among Medicare and most third-party payers has increased in response to pressure to reduce healthcare costs. The return of billions of dollars to Medicare, Medicaid and third-party programs through these medical audit reviews has also increased. For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2014 Annual Report estimated that the Centers for Medicare &…
CHICAGO—As good an option as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is for many patients with rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and especially lupus, safety must be an important consideration, an expert said at this April’s ACR State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium. The use of the antimalarial has become a controversial subject, with clinicians trying to balance the drug’s disease-modifying…
How do you ask a new patient about sex and gender—or know which pronoun to use? Keep the conversation straightforward and respectful to put everyone at ease, says Morgan Orndorff, a transgender man who works as an administrator at a major academic medical center. “Everyone is a little different in terms of their sensitivity level”…
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)…