McMahan et al. examined how abnormal gastrointestinal (GI) transit may contribute to GI severity and symptoms in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). About 90% of people with SSc have GI tract involvement, and understanding the connection between GI symptoms, their severity and abnormal GI transit may permit targeted therapeutic approaches for these patients.
The growing rheumatologist workforce shortage has loomed over the profession, threatening to undercut the delivery of care to the increasing number of patients with rheumatic conditions. “The workforce shortage is an existential threat to the field of rheumatology and to the care we deliver to our patients,” says ACR President Kenneth Saag, MD, who lauded…
A recent editorial provides new insights by reexamining the definitions of remission for rheumatoid arthritis and outlining concerns with the use of specific metrics for remission in clinical trials.
If you ever want to be depressed, turn to the internet. This might strike some of you as a truism. Certainly, between the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it is difficult to open your browser without being smacked in the face by a dismally depressing piece of news. In this particular case, however, I’m…
With both impressive sensitivity and specificity in capturing active large vessel vasculitis, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan is a potential tool for determining disease activity and predicting relapse in patients with large vessel vasculitis.
Rheumatologists can do better at helping systemic lupus erythematosus patients from racial and ethnic minority groups adhere to their lupus medication regimens, according to a paper published in Arthritis Care & Research. Researchers from Duke University examined medication adherence barriers from the perspectives of healthcare providers and patients. Their findings suggest more attention should be…
I just couldn’t believe it. Like all of you, I receive many requests to see patients urgently. And like all of you, I can’t possibly accommodate all of those requests. So I triage: I look through the referrals and try to differentiate patients who want to be seen from those who need to be seen….
Over the past few years, biosimilars and other new drugs have been introduced to treat rheumatic illnesses. Some of the conditions we treat have numerous drug options; others have few or only off-label options. This series, Rheumatology Drugs at a Glance, provides streamlined information on the administration of biologic, biosimilar and other medications used to…
CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapies may have the potential to treat rheumatic diseases in which current therapeutic options are limited, such as lupus, interstitial lung disease and systemic sclerosis.
COVID-19 vaccination, treatments for rheumatic disease and more—the Late-Breaking Abstracts session of ACR Convergence 2021 highlighted six studies with implications for rheumatology.