News

The American College of Rheumatology have released guidelines for managing reproductive health that include 131 recommendations and 12 good practice suggestions.

A study of 312,081 pregnant women with rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis or no inflammatory arthritis, finds that women with rheumatoid arthritis are more likely to have pregnancy complications.

New this week: The American College of Rheumatology has issued treatment guidelines for the management of reproductive health in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. They include 12 ungraded good practice statements and 131 graded recommendations for all female patients considering becoming pregnant.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis are not at an increased risk of cancer, however.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial has confirmed that low-dose methotrexate is associated with an increased risk of skin cancer, according to a study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

A systematic review and meta-analysis published today in JAMA Dermatology confirms that psoriasis patients have a slightly increased risk of cancer, specifically, keratinocyte cancer and lymphomas.

Patients who use methotrexate have increased risk of skin cancer, gastrointestinal, infectious, lung, and blood adverse events.

The gel is intended to relieve join pain in the hand, wrist, elbow, foot, ankle, or knee.

New treatments for rheumatoid arthritis can effectively control inflammation, but they do little to improve quality of life indicators-like fatigue-that are important to patients, shows a new study.

Long-term use of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) may show radiographic progression benefit in axial spondyloarthritis, say researchers recently writing in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

In a new study, investigators show belimumab as a treatment could normalize or stabilize proteinuria is patients with lupus nephritis.

The practice of systematically tapering biological disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) in all patients with inflammatory arthritis who have reached a certain disease activity target may not be supported by current evidence, according to a review published recently in Autoimmunity Reviews

The internationally recommended Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) cutoff of four and above may not be applicable when initiating treatment with the tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitor (TNFi) golimumab (Simponi, Janssen), say researchers recently writing in The Journal of Rheumatology.

Regardless of BMI level, having a genetic susceptibility for gout may be a stronger predictor of disease than weight, say researchers writing in Arthritis and Rheumatology this week.

Neither intermittent nor daily dosing of vitamin D alone was associated with reduced risk of fracture, but daily supplementation with both vitamin D and calcium showed promise in a study recently published in JAMA Network Open.

Neither intermittent nor daily dosing of vitamin D alone was associated with reduced risk of fracture, but daily supplementation with both vitamin D and calcium showed promise in a study recently published in JAMA Network Open.

Findings of a phase 3 clinical trial show that patients who take a 15 mg or 30 mg dose achieved higher ACR20, ACR50, and ACR70 scores than those who had a placebo.

Women with rheumatoid arthritis who adhered to a defined program involving diagnostic, therapeutic, and prenatal care recommendations restored the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes to that expected in the general population, say researchers recently writing in Arthritis Care & Research.

A 20-month-old boy with skin peeling, a strawberry red tongue and swelling of the hands and feet. Can you diagnose this patient?

In patients with moderate to severe systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), anifrolumab (AstraZeneca) was superior to placebo for improving overall disease activity, skin disease and oral corticosteroid tapering, say researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There is insufficient evidence to support long-term effects on pain and functioning of low-dose radiation therapy for hand and knee osteoarthritis, say researchers writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Simple hip motion tests and observing for pain during that motion were helpful in identifying patients most likely to have hip osteoarthritis on plain radiography, say researchers recently writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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.

Probiotic supplementation using a mix of three Lactobacillus strains naturally occurring in the human gut microbiota protects against lumbar spine bone loss in healthy, early postmenopausal women, say researchers recently writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Compared with other antihypertensive medications, amlodipine was found to reduce risk of gout in older patients.

Probiotic supplementation using a mix of three Lactobacillus strains naturally occurring in the human gut microbiota protects against lumbar spine bone loss in healthy, early postmenopausal women, say researchers recently writing in The Lancet Rheumatology.

Apremilast (Otezla, Celgene) resulted in a greater reduction in the number of oral ulcers associated with Behçet’s syndrome than placebo, say researchers recently writing in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A diagnosis of hidradenitis suppurativa may precede the development of ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis in patients, say researchers writing in the January 22 issue of JAMA Dermatology.

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.

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.