Elizabeth “Blair” Solow, MD, MSc, and Angus Worthing, MD, FACP, FACR, described the top political issues affecting rheumatology now and how ACR members can work toward practices and policies that help us better care for patients.


Elizabeth “Blair” Solow, MD, MSc, and Angus Worthing, MD, FACP, FACR, described the top political issues affecting rheumatology now and how ACR members can work toward practices and policies that help us better care for patients.

The Plenary III Session reviewed the results of the SAPHYR trial of sarilumab in PMR patients, as well as the WE-CAN study on the impact of a community-level diet & exercise program on knee pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Catherine Kolonko |
A new disease model for lupus tackles issues with fatigue and other serious conditions that, although quite common among patients, get less attention because they fall outside classic symptoms associated with inflammation, a debilitating force behind systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The model features subtypes to categorize two main groups of symptoms into type 1, typically…

Shung Ming Chiu, MD |
PHILADELPHIA—“My symptoms started in the final year of medical school, and at that stage I believed I was strong enough to fight my condition,” said Shung Ming Chiu, MD, in a poster presentation at ACR Convergence 2022. “Later, I realized that it’s not [about] fighting [but] rather accepting it and adapting to the new normal….

PHILADELPHIA—Treat to target (T2T) is a common phrase in rheumatology these days—and a welcome one.1 Many of us are familiar with what T2T means in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but we may be less sure of its meaning in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). At ACR Convergence 2022, Alexis Ogdie, MD, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology, University of…

David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD |
PHILADELPHIA—Approximately 100 research abstracts on axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) were accepted for presentation at ACR Convergence 2022. It is exciting to see a wealth of research on axSpA being undertaken worldwide. Here, we highlight important points from 10 of these studies. 1. Abstract 0378: Prevalence of Axial Spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in Patients Treated for Chronic Back Pain…

Leslie Mertz, PhD |
In his new role as the 86th president of the ACR, Douglas White, MD, PhD, is excited about the opportunities to serve and energize the organization and members in the coming year.

Despite an expanding armamentarium of disease-modifying treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), some patients with RA remain symptomatic.1 Current treatment guidelines from both the ACR and the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) recommend treat-to-target strategies to achieve remission or low disease activity, and patients want to feel better.2,3 So how can we best help…

Oshrat E. Tayer-Shifman, MD; Kimberley Yuen, BSc, MD; Zahi Touma, MD, PhD, FACP, FACR; William Daniel Soulsby, MD; Aleksandra Kostic, BSE; Valia Leifer, MA; & Elena Losina, PhD, MSC |
MoCA as a Screening Test in SLE Assessing the utility of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) By Oshrat E. Tayer-Shifman, MD, Kimberley Yuen, BSc, MD, & Zahi Touma, MD, PhD, FACP, FACR Why was this study done? Cognitive impairment is a common manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with a prevalence of 40% based on…

Baljeet Rai, MD, Abhimanyu Amarnani, MD, PhD, Ja-Yoon Uni Choe, MD, Nicole K. Zagelbaum Ward, DO, MPH, & Richard S. Panush, MD, MACP, MACR |
The study of rheumatology (and medicine) in art, history, literature and music is engaging and informative.1-12 In this article, we present some instances when rheumatic and autoimmune diseases in certain individuals may have affected the course of history in Western civilization. Physicians are usually concerned, appropriately, with the effects of illness on the lives of…