The Case A 41-year-old woman was referred to the dermatology clinic for a three-month history of tender lesions on her elbows and around the joints of her hands. Her medical history was notable for seropositive, non-erosive rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which was being treated with 5 mg predÂnisone daily, 10 mg methotrexate weekly by mouth, 200…
At the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Francisco in November, the ACR and the ARHP honored a group of distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to rheumatology research, education and patient care. In the December 2015 issue, The Rheumatologist reported on the ACR’s awards. This month, we speak with the ARHP winners about…
Patient education has always been at the core of the nursing profession. Nurses pride themselves on being great teachers and patient advocates. When self-injectable biologics were first introduced to the market, one of the main goals was to make patients independent and put them in the driver’s seat of their own care. Yet without a…
NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, is working to improve funding for research into new treatments for lupus and RA through the Accelerating Medicines Partnership, a coalition of private and public partners identifying and validating promising biological targets for therapeutics…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded the American College of Rheumatology’s (ACR) The Lupus Initiative (TLI) with a five-year grant to support the development of a national, grassroots program targeting primary care providers, persons with undiagnosed Lupus and rheumatology health care providers. The program will have three components: Immediate dissemination of…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are associated with an increased risk of migraine, according to new research from Denmark. “The main finding of our study was a psoriasis severity-dependent increased risk of new-onset migraine, and patients with severe skin psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis appeared to have the highest risk,” Dr. Alexander Egeberg from…
(Reuters Health)—When patients have drug benefits that encourage them to save money by using certain pharmacies, they may end up filling more prescriptions, a company-funded study suggests. Narrow pharmacy networks that cover prescriptions only at certain retailers and drug benefits that offer consumers lower out-of-pocket fees at a subset of preferred pharmacies have become more…
What struck me first as I walked by the exam room where Lynn P. sat was the swelling in her fingers and wrists. The bloated hands rested unnaturally on her thighs, palms up, fingers slightly flexed. Her strawberry-blond curls were offset by a high-neck, loose-fitting, burgundy sweater. Her pale skin matched her trim slacks. She had…
PSOLAR, the Psoriasis Longitudinal Assessment and Registry, is a multicenter, longitudinal, intercontinental, disease-based registry used to identify adverse events from commonly used psoriasis drugs.1 An evaluation of the risk of serious infection from systemic psoriasis treatments was recently published using data from PSOLAR. Ninety-three institutional review boards or ethics committees reported into the registry from…
For six years, the Psoriasis Longitudinal Assessment and Registry (PSOLAR) has collected data to assess the infection risk for drugs treating systemic psoriasis.