Diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) early in the disease process is ideal, because treatments are more likely to be effective and less damage will occur. Guidelines from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) state that using newer biologic medications, in addition to more aggressive dosing of traditional medications, is…
Case report: A 78-year-old Caucasian female presented to our outpatient rheumatology clinic with pain in her bilateral shoulders, hands and knees that began suddenly one month earlier. She admitted to stiffness in her hands lasting several hours, and expressed an inability to extend her fingers. She denied fever, rashes, jaw claudication, headache or visual changes….
“Worst of all is the pain in my calves,” she said. “It feels like burning deep inside.” So began my first encounter with a 69-year-old woman who was referred to rheumatology clinic for evaluation of two months of constitutional symptoms and a positive ANCA test, which had been ordered by her primary care doctor. Her…
A recent study of how medical facilities in three countries meet minimum care standards for patients with childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus found a wide variation in quality of care…
(Reuters Health)—Women who have pregnancies less than a year apart may have a greater risk for osteoporosis later in life than those who wait longer between babies, a study suggests. Researchers compared the reproductive histories of 239 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis to 298 similar women without thinning bones. Pregnancies no more than 12 months apart…
New research by physicists from Johns Hopkins University explores the correlation between the sun’s geomagnetic activity and the incidence of giant cell arteritis and rheumatoid arthritis, including geographic latitudes that put residents at highest risk.
It has been nearly 35 years since the original descriptions of what now is recognized as AIDS (the acquired immune deficiency syndrome), an advanced form of infection secondary to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The epidemic of HIV infection remains the singular most dramatic epidemic of our generation and will likely remain with us for…
A single injection daily of zoledronic acid may improve bone mineral density (BMD) in frail elderly women in long-term care facilities, a new randomized controlled trial shows. However, the clinical importance of the improvement, observed over a two-year period, remains unclear, Dr. Neil M. Resnick, of the University of Pittsburgh, told Reuters Health in a…
Glucocorticoids: The Debate Continues Déjà vu … In past decades, rheumatologists have seen, heard, practiced and taught much of what has been argued in the “ongoing debate” on the use of glucocorticoids (GCs) in the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).1 It is heartening to note that eminent professors have stuck to their premise all these…
Bone microarchitecture is impaired in premenopausal women with active celiac disease, a new study from Argentina shows. “This report helps us to understand how bone is affected in celiac disease: increasing bone resorption and thinning trabeculae, even losing some number of them,” Dr. María Belén Zanchetta from Instituto de Diagnóstico e Investigaciones Metabólicas in Buenos…