A recent study explored medical concerns for patients who have lupus markers, but fall short of meeting enough criteria for official disease classification. Investigators at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation conducted a large study to explore current treatments of patients with incomplete lupus erythematous (ILE) and to compare antibody characteristics to healthy people and patients…
If you’re a middle-aged woman who makes a New Year’s resolution to work out regularly and you keep that promise for only six months, don’t think that will go far in protecting your joints. Researchers in Australia have homed in on the details of the sustained physical activity required to reduce the risk of joint…
The first organization dedicated to fighting rheumatic disease was the International League Against Rheumatism (ILAR), founded in 1928 under the guidance of a Dutch national, Dr. Jan van Breemen. Interest in rheumatology quickly spread throughout the American continent, and the American Association for the Study and Control of Rheumatism met in Cleveland, for what they…
In 1866, Adolf Kussmaul, an internist, and Rudolf Maier, a pathologist, published the classic characterization of what eventually became known as polyarteritis nodosa.1 It was the first scientific clinical characterization of a noninfectious vasculitis. As such, it became a paradigmatic point of contrast to other types of vasculitides that were later described. Their description also…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The RANKL inhibitor denosumab is superior to the bisphosphonate risedronate in increasing bone-mineral density (BMD) at the lumbar spine in patients just starting or continuing steroid therapy, according to 12-month results of a 24-month randomized controlled study. “Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is the most common form of secondary osteoporosis and increases the risk of…
You see a patient for the first time to establish care for Sjögren’s disease. She complains of dry eyes, dry mouth and diffuse arthralgias. You do not appreciate any synovitis on physical exam. Of note, you are the fourth rheumatologist she has seen during the past year. Toward the end of the clinic visit, she…
Studying the way patients with knee osteoarthritis walk and changes to footwear are helping patients under the care of Najia Shakoor, MD, and colleagues take control of their pain and possibly delay disease progression…
Initial results from an ongoing trial show that upadacitinib outperforms adalimumab in achieving ACR20 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis…
Objective: Low-grade bone marrow edema (BME) has been reported in the sacroiliac (SI) joints of 25% of healthy individuals and patients with nonspecific mechanical back pain, thus challenging the specificity and predictive value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the identification of early spondyloarthritis (SpA). It is unknown whether stress injury in competition sports may…
There is an old adage that there are two types of people—lumpers and splitters. For some, people are easily categorized into liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican, Donald Trump supporter vs. Hillary Clinton supporter. For others, everyone is a snowflake, and what makes us different is much more important than what makes us the same….