Dermatomyositis is an uncommon autoimmune condition involving skeletal muscle characterized by subacute onset of progressive weakness, intramuscular inflammatory infiltrates and the presence of myositis-specific autoantibodies.1 Immune-mediated myopathies may exert some pathogenic effects on the muscle tissue by targeting the microvasculature.1 Capillary inflammation, fragility and loss may contribute to heightened bleeding events in these patients. Here,…
Have you ever asked a patient, “How’s your sex life?” If your answer is “No,” you’re not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds healthcare providers don’t talk about sex with their patients for a variety of reasons: They feel uncomfortable discussing sex and sexuality with patients; They believe discussing sex will…
New research into the symptom heterogeneity of patients with post-treatment Lyme disease may serve as a framework to create targeted interventions or novel treatments for these patients.
As more people get vaccinated for COVID-19, there’s hope that the long days of a pandemic, which has claimed more than 2.5 million lives globally and 500,000 in the U.S., will soon draw to a close and allow daily life to return to normal. However, for some people, this recovery may take longer, because the…
A posthoc analysis confirms patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) taking secukinumab experience improvement in all signs and symptoms of PsA as measured by the GRAPPA-OMERACT disease activity core domains.
Clinicians can help their patients tap into personal resilience, and such characteristics as grit, gratitude and grace, to manage their chronic pain, says Afton L. Hassett, PsyD.
In December, the FDA approved belimumab, the first drug approved to treat lupus nephritis, an historic action that was rapidly followed in January by the approval of a second treatment for lupus nephritis, voclosporin.
Despite revolutionary advances in pharmacologic treatments for many rheumatic conditions in recent years, some patients still fail to reach a desired state of living with their disease, notes R. Swamy Venuturupalli, MD, FACR, a clinician and researcher in rheumatology, as well as the founder and director of Attune Health, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based company that…
We report on a 77-year-old patient who was diagnosed with giant cell arteritis (GCA) on histopathology of the submandibular gland and eventually went on to develop classic signs and symptoms of GCA. This observation highlights neck swelling as a rare initial presentation of GCA. Case Presentation A 77-year-old previously healthy man presented to his primary…
A 24-year-old woman presented to our rheumatology office in 2017 with a blotchy purple rash on her arms and legs. She reported no history of miscarriage or blood clots. The rash pattern was concerning for livedo reticularis or livedo racemosa, and she was noted to have an anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) titer of 1:160 with a…