News

Separate newly published assessments describe hyaluronic acid injections and debridement after meniscectomy of scant clinical value for longstanding relief of knee pain, whatever small statistical significance may turn up in some studies.

On June 7, 2014, the state of Missouri passed State Bill 716, a piece of legislation creating a new category of health care provider in the state, known as the, "Assistant Physician."

For patients with hypertension, finding the right course of treatment can be critically important especially when other health factors are taken into consideration.

A new international multicenter study of often-deadly macrophage activation syndrome in systemic JIA reveals key laboratory and clinical warning signs. Watch ferritin levels especially closely.

An eight-year study of more than 100 patients with giant cell arteritis reveals that for the majority of patients it is not an isolated episode. Relapses tend to occur within two years, usually as polymyalgia rheumatica or cranial symptoms.

Knee osteoarthritis can trigger a series of clinical problems that set patients on the road to early frailty, especially if both knees are involved. It's prudent for their physicians to be on high alert for it.

Whatever is causing this woman’s hip pain, her x-ray film looks quite severe. The diagnosis was correct 40 years ago, but it couldn’t be treated effectively then. What’s the problem?

A 71-year-old woman with one month of joint pain showed a classic sign of eosinophilic fasciitis.

This 28-year-old woman presented with a large hyperpigmented patch on the right side of her upper back. Although the lesion developed over the past 2 years, it has been "sinking in" over the past 2 weeks. The patient denies any trauma, pain, discomfort, or pruritis, as well as any family history of cancers, lymphoma, or autoimmune disease. However, she has a history of gastroesophageal reflux disease and onychomycosis, and her grandfather has a similar lesion.

Her headaches haven't improved with prednisone. It's not meningitis. Your tests show negative for vasculitis but positive for Lyme. Can you guess the diagnosis?

While rhabdomyolysis has been recognized as a consequence of crush injuries since the late 1800s, the most significant step toward finding the condition's causes, mechanisms, and management strategies occurred when physicians who treated crush injuries from the 1941 London Blitz identified a link between rhabdomyolysis and renal impairment.

Biologics have added a decade to the lifespan of rheumatoid arthritis patients since only the start of this century. The impact of age on that treatment has been a subject of intense study.

A small case series suggests that the mTOR inhibitor sirolimus has fewer adverse events and similar efficacy to other options for steroid-refractory hepatitis.

(AUDIO) David Pisetsky MD, new President-elect of the US Bone and Joint Initiative, offers his perspective.on the role of rheumatologists in a patient-centered, multidisciplinary medical future.

About one in 20 patients with genital chlamydia, the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the US, progress to reactive arthritis. This is simple to treat, but devilish to detect and diagnose.

Although hospitals routinely implement peer review processes to ensure that physicians are meeting the prevailing standards of care, the procedure has been associated with controversy.

Combining results from studies involving nearly 12,000 rheumatoid arthritis patients finds the fusion protein etanercept less likely than other TNF inhibitors to be discontinued due to infections.

A month after being diagnosed with gout, this woman returned for care with pain, swelling, and effusion in both knees. Can you guess the diagnosis?

Patients with osteoporosis got some good news at a recent conference when the results of a study showed that taking the drug denosumab can help increase bone density and keep their rate of fractures at a low level.

This is the tale of a 51-year-old man with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) who fell backwards from standing height while climbing out of the bath, and landed on his back.

(EULAR 2014) New research finds erectile dysfunction common among gout patients, and distinctive differences between men and women in predisposing factors and treatment risks.

(EULAR 2014) A comparative study has found cranial ultrasound more sensitive and no less specific than temporal artery biopsy, the current gold standard, for diagnosing giant cell arteritis.

(EULAR 2014) The first international guidelines on the treatment of polymyalgia rheumatica have been finalized and presented at the European rheumatologists conference this week in Paris. Publication is forthcoming.

For the first time a study has linked prednisone and other drugs, as well as severity of disease, with difficulty conceiving among women who have rheumatoid arthritis.

The high volume of distal radius procedures combined with an elevated risk for adverse outcomes such as malunion, loss of radial length, inclination, and volar or dorsal angulation make surgeries in the forearm ripe for malpractice claims.

A radiograph to detect the presence of a cervical rib should be mandatory prior to thoracic outlet syndrome surgery as a baseline study.

Reasons why women with lupus change from azathioprine to mycophenolate mofetil or vice versa are different, as is the success of switching.

Is the Atkins diet associated with an increased risk of gout flares? Other rheumatologists want to hear the answer from your clinical experience.

New from Europe: Two questionnaires to help you and your patients assess the impact of psoriatic arthritis on their lives. Both are available online, in English, for free.

Although the primary outcomes of the US National Institutes of Health Women's Health Initiative trial suggested daily calcium plus vitamin D supplementation significantly reduced hip fracture in postmenopausal women, a follow-up investigation found no difference in hip fracture incidence between the study's supplement and placebo groups nearly 5 years after the intervention phase ended.