CAM Use is Common in Psoriasis

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The July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reports that patients with psoriasis are frequent users of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) largely because of disatisfaction with traditional medications.

RheumNow Podcast – Prevalence of Methotrexate Toxicities (6.28.19)

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Dr. Jack Cush reviews the news and journal reports from the past week on RheumNow.com.

Mortality from Falls in the Elderly

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JAMA reports that there is a trend of increasing mortality from falls in older US adults between 2000 to 2016 and that mortality rates are increased with increasing age. 

Disparities in Lupus Survival

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MMWR has published the outcomes from the Georgia Lupus Registry between 2002 and 2016, finding that black women were not only more likely to die from lupus than white lupus patients; but they died on average 13 years earlier (mean age 51.8 and 52.3 years, respectively) than whites (mean age 64.4 and 65.0 years, respectively). Black women with lupus were 3.34 times more likely to die than black women in the general population, while white women with lupus were 2.43 times more likely to die than white women in the general population. None of the white women with lupus died within 5 years of diagnosis, while mortality was elevated for black women from the date of diagnosis on.

ACP Supports Transparency of Health Care Costs

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The American College of Physicians (ACP) is encouraged by the Trump administration’s executive order to improve transparency of health care costs.

DMARD Success in Myositis-Related Interstitial Lung Disease

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It is estimated that up to 50% of patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathy will be complicated by interstitial lung disease, and having ILD may impart a poor prognosis. A recent review of the Johns Hopkins myositis-related ILD cohort has shown that azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil use is associated improved lung function and less prednisone use.

Study Looks at Opioid Use After Knee Surgery

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A small study looked at whether reducing the number of opioid tablets prescribed after knee surgery would reduce postoperative use and if preoperative opioid-use education would reduce it even more

Sjögren's Syndrome Differs in Minorities

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Minority groups in the U.S. have differing rates of Sjögren's syndrome and exhibit distinct clinical patterns of the disease, a large cross-sectional study revealed. The percentage of American Indians in a SS cohort of 610 patients was much higher than expected, at 25.3%, whereas the percentage of African Americans was lower, at 3.1%. In addition, American Indians had higher levels of disease activity and more extraglandular manifestations, whereas African Americans had a symptom pattern associated with subsequent lymphoma development, researchers reported in Arthritis Care & Research.

Steroids in GCA and PMR Increase Infectious Risk

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A large study of UK family practice patients shows that polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) or giant cell arteritis (GCA) patients treated with glucocorticoids are at an increased risk of bacterial, viral, parasitic and fungal infection, even at daily doses of less than 5 mg prednisolone.

Lupus Patients at Risk for Heart Failure

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Patients with SLE are at increased risk for HF, not just of MI and stroke, with risk similar to that of patients with diabetes, researchers found in an analysis of Medicaid data.

RheumNow Podcast – Late Breaking Abstract Wrap-Up (6.21.19)

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Dr. Jack Cush reviews the week’s news and wrap up from EULAR19.

EULAR 2019 - Podcast #1

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This EULAR 2019 Podcast is a compilation of audio clips from EULAR 2019 in Madrid.

 

Click HERE to listen.