Rheumatoid Arthritis

In this month's rheumatoid arthritis quiz, we focus on tests used to diagnose rheumatoid arthritis as there are plenty. In this quiz, we focus on the most commonly ordered tests used to evaluate a patient who may have rheumatoid arthritis.

Disease activity measures still don’t appear to be entirely aligned with patient perceptions of pain and disease activity, shows a study featured in today’s news roundup. Researchers writing in Rheumatology say that condition improvements seen in objective measures of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity over the past three decades, do not match improvements in patient reported outcomes such as mental health, functional disability, overall disease activity, pain and vitality/fatigue. Learn more about this and other recently published studies on rheumatoid arthritis.

In today's news roundup, we look back at some of this week's most popular stories on Rheumatology Network. We begin with a report on the right vaccine dose for rheumatoid arthritis patients.

In patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis, high-dose trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (HD-TIV) is safe and more immunogenic than standard-dose quadrivalent influenza vaccine (SD-QIV), say researchers writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, yet rheumatologists and primary care physicians who treat RA patients sometimes miss the signs and symptoms of CVD in their patients. Learn more in this slideshow.

The placebo response in clinical trials for rheumatoid arthritis appears to have grown over the last two decades with patients exhibiting significant improvements in pain scores with placebo treatment.

How strong is the familial link in rheumatoid arthritis? The answer may surprise you. Test your knowledge in this quiz.

The JAK inhibitor upadacitinib was approved last August for the treatment of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. In this quiz, we focus on findings from a recent phase three clinical trial that tested different doses of this new oral medication. Test your knowledge of upadacitinib in this quiz.

In this slideshow, we feature results from some noteworthy rheumatoid arthritis studies that were recently published: improved patient-reported outcomes in refractory rheumatoid arthritis with use of a JAK inhibitor, mortality risk with coronary microvascular dysfunction similar in rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, prescriber preference affects the length of time a patient takes a conventional synthetic DMARD before switching to a biologic DMARD, and more.

Treatment with the recently approved oral, selective JAK-1 inhibitor upadacitinib (Rinvoq, AbbVie) resulted in significant improvements in various patient-reported outcomes among individuals with rheumatoid arthritis who have had inadequate responses to biologic DMARDs, researchers report in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

Investigators identified 7 healthcare quality indicators, “the ideal clinical pathway,” for patients with rheumatoid arthritis to reduce the risk of birth complications.

A 62-year-old woman complained to her doctor about joint pain in her fingers. The joints in her fingers were warm, tender, and slightly swollen. Can you diagnose this patient?

A Quality Improvement (QI) method called Lean A3 helped improve and sustain opioid prescribing within an ambulatory rheumatology clinic, say researchers writing in ACR Open Rheumatology last month.

Rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes mellitus share many of the same characteristics. Both are powered by abnormal glucose metabolism and both are associated with insulin resistance and adverse cardiovascular disease outcomes. In this slideshow, we highlight some of the similarities.

Studies that explore the efficacy and safety of JAK inhibitors for rheumatoid arthritis are among those we selected as most noteworthy in 2019. Also, at the top of the list, a study that shows glucocorticoids, not necessarily biologics, raise the infection risk after joint replacement surgery. Learn more in this slideshow.

Biologics, JAK inhibitors, and opioid alternatives all served major payoffs in the field in the 2010s.

Xcenda, an AmerisourceBergen company, has just published a white paper that demonstrates the prevalence of step therapy and its potential negative impact on rheumatology patients. The authors of the report say the practice doesn’t always have the best interest of patents in mind and payers don't entirely disagree. Learn more in this report.

In this month's rheumatoid arthritis quiz, we focus on contraception, a patient's preference for tapering and the self-management of flares. 

Sociodemographic, physician, and insurance coverage influences who receives biologic DMARD therapy, findings of a cohort study found.

A new discontinuation strategy for infliximab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, in which the biologic dose was determined by the serum level of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, was unsuccessful for sustained biologic-free remission, say researchers recently writing in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis who are physically active are less likely to report cognitive difficulties, say researchers recently writing in ACR Open Rheumatology.

Ultra-low doses of rituximab (Rituxan, MabThera) used as maintenance treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in patients who responded well to this agent did not show non-inferiority, but could nevertheless be considered in clinical practice, say researchers recently writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

More than half of rheumatoid arthritis patients had persistent moderate-to-high disease activity after six months of treatment with a conventional synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (csDMARD), and less than a third had their therapy escalated, indicating that there is considerable need for a treat-to-target approach to care for these patients, say researchers recently writing in Clinical Rheumatology.

Even though senior patients with rheumatoid arthritis receive biologic therapies less often than patients who develop the condition early in life, a Japanese study presented this month at the ACR annual meeting, shows that patients 60 years and older can benefit from therapy just as much as younger patients.

Researchers are exploring the possibility of using immune checkpoint inhibitors in rheumatoid arthritis patients. A small study presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting earlier this month shows that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who were treated with immunotherapy, responded just as well as a comparable patient population with only 12 of 22 patients experiencing flares.