History A 39-year-old woman returns for follow-up for her rheumatoid arthritis. She has positive rheumatoid factor, but no organ or systemic involvement. She has joint swelling and pain in her left hand, right elbow and right knee. Her pain is at an 8 on a 10-point scale. She states the pain is worse in the…
In the complex web of interactions between systemic inflammatory response, rheumatic disease and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), what is the potential for using rheumatologic therapies to treat other medical conditions linked to inflammation? Some medical researchers have looked at cardiac conditions, and others have examined the overlap with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Positive effects…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The selective Janus kinase 1 and 2 inhibitor baricitinib appears also to help patients whose rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has not responded adequately to biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, according to results from the RA-BEACON randomized trial. The previously published overall results from RA-BEACON showed that baricitinib-treated patients had significantly better functional and clinical…
SAN DIEGO—New insights into how scleroderma and myositis may be linked with cancer have led to intriguing questions that could impact patient care, experts said at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in November. Understanding the relationship between cancer and rheumatic diseases is important because rheumatologists are seeing more and more patients with both diseases, and…
Researchers explored the role of carbamylated protein (CarP) and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in periodontitis and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The results showed significantly higher levels of CarP and NETs in patients with both RA and periodontitis than in healthy controls. The data suggest that RA and periodontitis may share an underlying pathogenic mechanism…
Although six biosimilar agents have now been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for use in rheumatology, scientific, clinical, economic and prescribing questions about the use of biosimilars abound. In fact, at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, Joseph Huffstutter, MD, a rheumatologist in private practice in Chattanooga, Tenn., said that…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The selective Janus kinase 1 and 2 inhibitor baricitinib appears also to help patients whose rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has not responded adequately to biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, according to results from the RA-BEACON randomized trial. The previously published overall results from RA-BEACON showed that baricitinib-treated patients had significantly better functional and clinical…
SAN DIEGO—The next era of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) therapy could involve combining anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs with drugs that target molecules regulating the destructive potential of synovial fibroblasts, or even with anti-angiogenic drugs, said a pioneer of RA biologics therapy at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8. Ravinder N. Maini, MD, professor of…
Rheumatologists working in every practice setting face a number of challenges that can seem insurmountable. How do you cost-effectively manage administrative burdens? How do you establish an efficient and effective approach to capturing quality metrics? How do you maintain the critical elements of the care you provide, such as diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound and patient access…
(Reuters)—A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that invalidated a crucial Johnson & Johnson patent on its blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug, Remicade (infliximab), limiting J&J’s ability to seek damages from Pfizer Inc. over its launch of a lower-cost version of the drug. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed…