CHICAGO—Many nonsurgical therapies are available for knee osteoarthritis pain, but they vary greatly in effectiveness. “How should I proceed and figure out what to do with our patients?” asked David T. Felson, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, during OA Management Without Surgery in 2018, a session at the 2018…
CHICAGO—Are effective treatments for osteoarthritis (OA) on the horizon? In Emerging Treatments for Osteoarthritis at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, experts discussed potential therapies to address OA structural progression, pain and inflammation. With an aging population and rising obesity rates, “we can expect the prevalence of osteoarthritis will only increase,” said Anne-Marie Malfait, MD, PhD,…
Throughout a patient’s lifetime, providers are entrusted with their most intimate and personal information, which they expect to be kept private and confidential. Unfortunately, the healthcare system can face serious implications if any part of a patient’s privacy or information is breached. Under the Health Information Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) and state laws healthcare…
Recent studies point to a relationship between scleroderma and autoantibodies (e.g., anti-RNA polymerase III or anti-RNPC3), and an increased cancer risk within a short interval of scleroderma onset. Mechanistic studies provide further evidence that cancer may trigger scleroderma in patients with these autoantibodies. However, many questions remain unanswered. A study in the Annals of the…
Traditional X-rays, move over—there may be a new gold standard for joint imaging to assess even the smallest changes that can signal the onset of arthritis, as reported recently in the journal Scientific Reports.1 Utilizing the combined expertise of radiologists, rheumatologists and engineers, University of Cambridge researchers developed an algorithm to monitor the joints of…
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) accounts for more than 80% of OA disease burden and has doubled in prevalence in the mid-20th century in the U.S. when compared with people who lived during early industrial era (1800s to early 1900s).1 Currently, the diagnostic and treatment armamentaria are limited. Disease progression is measured by joint space narrowing on…
The Rheumatology Research Foundation has received a major donation from Audrey M. Nelson, MD, a retired rheumatologist from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The Audrey M. Nelson, MD, Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship Endowment in Training will support training awards for pediatric rheumatology fellowships. This generous donation addresses the growing demand for pediatric rheumatologists to ensure…
Do you remember the 1959 movie, The Mouse That Roared? Through a few small actions, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a small, often overlooked principality, becomes a superpower on the world map overnight. In many ways, rheumatology has been in the same position. We are a small specialty; we don’t have well-known diseases. Although our…
Studies highlighting the large numbers of people affected by knee osteoarthritis (OA) point to what clinicians who treat knee OA have been seeing for the past few decades: a substantial increase in the prevalence of knee OA in the U.S. and globally. Roughly 250 million people are affected by knee OA worldwide, and about 14…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—In patients with active non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA) who achieved remission while taking adalimumab, researchers saw fewer flares among those who continued taking the drug than among those who stopped taking it. “The results showed that continued therapy with adalimumab was associated with a higher rate of maintenance of remission compared with…