Pain management can involve more than active pharmacologic treatment. During a session at ACR Convergence 2023, experts addressed the benefits of patient self-management for pain, how it works with clinical care and the role of technology.


Pain management can involve more than active pharmacologic treatment. During a session at ACR Convergence 2023, experts addressed the benefits of patient self-management for pain, how it works with clinical care and the role of technology.

Editor’s note: Jan. 23, 2024. We have just learned that Dr. Paul Plotz passed away recently following a long illness. Come back soon for additional information. Here, we republish an interview with Dr. Plotz from 2019.

In an ACR Convergence 2022 session, Robert Spiera, MD, director of the Scleroderma, Vasculitis, and Myositis Center at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York City, discussed the use of sarilumab as a potential glucocorticoid-sparing therapy in a phase 3 study in patients with treatment-refractory polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), one of the most common inflammatory diseases…

On Feb. 28, 2023, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved sarilumab (Kevzara) for the treatment of adults with polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) for whom glucocorticoids have proved inadequate or who cannot tolerate a glucocorticoid taper.1,2 Sarilumab is an interleukin (IL) 6 receptor antagonist. In May 2017, the FDA initially approved the agent for the…

Katie Robinson |
Patients with polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) who had relapsed while tapering glucocorticoid therapy were more likely to achieve sustained remission at one year and have a lower glucocorticoid exposure if they were treated with sarilumab (Kevzara) plus a rapid, 14-week glucocorticoid taper than if they received placebo plus a standard, 52-week glucocorticoid taper. This is according…

What Are the Therapeutic Alternatives When a Janus Kinase Inhibitor Fails to Work? SAN DIEGO—Treatment alternatives after Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor failure in real-life conditions were analyzed and presented at ACR Convergence 2023 by Pablo Francisco Muñoz Martínez, a rheumatologist at the Hospital Universitario y Politécnico La Fe, Sagunto, Spain.1 JAK inhibitors are newer, targeted…

Larry Beresford |
At ACR Convergence 2023, experts addressed important topics in gout research, including treating and preventing gout flares, lowering urate levels and managing comorbidities, as well as racial inequities in gout treatment, disease burden and outcomes.

Larry Beresford |
Experts Whitney Marvin, MD, and Jinoos Yazdany, MD, discuss how to find synergy between work & career to better manage work/life conflicts and avoid burnout as rheumatologists.

SAN DIEGO—As part of a panel on systemic autoinflammatory diseases (SAIDs) at a Nov. 15 scientific session of ACR Convergence 2023, Sivia Lapidus, MD, shared context and insights on the therapeutic management of patients with these conditions. The Spectrum of SAIDs SAIDs encompass a broad swath of individually rare disorders driven by innate immune responses…

SAN DIEGO—In one presentation at Plenary Session 3, ACR Convergence 2023, Beth Wallace, MD, MSc, a staff physician at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Michigan, and an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, shared important data on the relationship between time-dependent cumulative glucocorticoid exposure and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in a cohort of veterans with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).