A 27-year-old, left-handed man was referred to our ultrasound clinic for left elbow pain. History The patient had been a pitcher on a Minor League Baseball team. Two years before, he developed sudden, severe medial elbow pain while pitching in a game. The pain was associated with some tingling down the left medial forearm. The…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Using bisphosphonates for several years is associated with increasing brittleness and decreasing toughness of bone, according to a new review. “Long-term treatment with bisphosphonates can have negative side effects in some people because of their effects on bone toughness [toughness = the energy that bone tissue can absorb before cracking],” David B….
In a clinical trial, researchers compared the efficacy of abaloparatide with alendronate in reducing the risk of fracture among postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. The findings suggest initial treatment with abaloparatide may result in greater vertebral fracture reduction than alendronate…
A 61-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was hospitalized for a several-month history of progressively worsening left ankle pain and swelling. She had been unable to bear weight on her left leg for several days and did not notice improvement in symptoms with 20 mg of prednisone daily, which she…
June saw the passing of a beloved colleague, mentor and friend to many in the rheumatology community when J. Timothy Harrington, MD, died of pancreatic cancer in his hometown of Madison, Wis. Dr. Harrington trained at Massachusetts General Hospital, the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute and UT Southwestern Medical Center, and served on…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—In postmenopausal women and men treated for at least two years with denosumab, a single infusion of zoledronate given after denosumab discontinuation does not completely prevent bone turnover and loss, researchers say. Given the findings, “bone mineral density (BMD) should probably be higher than the current target for discontinuation of bisphosphonate treatment…
Research into the disease-modifying effects of the novel cathepsin K inhibitor MIV-711 suggests it may be effective as a knee OA treatment. In OA patients using the treatment, the study documented statistically significant reductions in bone and cartilage progression…
In 2001, Victoria Seligman, MD, MPH, was vacationing in Vietnam. While traveling by train, she met a student from Yale University who was working on the school’s Cambodian Genocide Program, which documents the atrocities that occurred in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 under the Khmer Rouge regime. Approximately 1.7 million people—representing 21% of the population—were slaughtered….
The FDA is considering an application for subcutaneous tanezumab, a monoclonal antibody, as a treatment for moderate to severe osteoarthritis…
The Medicare statute states that items and services provided to beneficiaries must be “reasonable and necessary” to qualify for reimbursement. Although the Medicare program determines in specific cases whether an item or service is reasonable and necessary, it also issues policies, called coverage determinations, to instruct Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) what to reimburse providers for….