Lana Pine

“We imagine that the rate of problems [accessing methotrexate] is going to be much higher in higher-risk populations," Wipfler explained.

Hamilton and his team aim to reduce intensive and often unnecessary screening, including weekly fetal cardiac ultrasounds, via autoantibody identification.

The number of autoantibodies and congenital heart block pregnancies expanded to approximately 30 different autoantibodies to different targets near term.

Cuoghi Camille Edens, MD, discusses her upcoming ACR presentation, “Fertility and the Use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Perceptions, Thoughts and Experiences of Men and Women with Rheumatic Disease.”

Although patients with autoimmune diseases are more likely to develop severe vaccine-preventable infections, vaccine uptake remains relatively low in this patient population.

EULAR guidelines suggest that non-pharmacological therapies should be prioritized over treatment with medication.

Investigators believe it is important to understand the patient's perspective regarding vaccine concerns and combining that perspective with stakeholders to prioritize topics for future research.

The association between type of body composition and fibromyalgia was evaluated using 43 women with clinically diagnosed fibromyalgia.

Previous studies have suggested a connection between rheumatic diseases, which often affect women in their reproductive years, and adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as pre-eclampsia.

Abdul Abdellatif, MD, FASN, explains the results of the MIRROR RCT trial, in which the renal function of patients with gout receiving pegloticase plus methotrexate co-therapy was evaluated.

Bahar Moghaddam, MD, discusses the impact of arthritis worldwide, recent drug approvals, and the importance of early diagnosis and management of rheumatic diseases.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending November 5, 2022.

While approximately 1 in 5 patients with RA went undiagnosed during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, time to first rheumatology assessment and DMARD prescription were not impacted.

“Most thyroid diseases and rheumatoid arthritis are chronic diseases, and unfortunately, early signs of thyroid dysfunction are not specific and are often overshadowed by clinical manifestations of other diseases."

Investigators aimed to assess self-reported changes in physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Investigators note that healthcare approaches may benefit from including patient-reported experiences of living with and being treated for fibromyalgia.

"It may be important to identify genetic variants from a gout genome-wide association study (GWAS) rather than serum urate GWAS, in case these variants have an effect on gout independent of their effect on serum urate.”

The PRERA trial was the first real-world, non-interventional study to analyze radiographic progression in patients with RA or PsA treated with etanercept.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending October 29, 2022.

Investigators concluded febuxostat should still be used cautiously for patients with gout and cardiovascular diseases due to inconclusive results.

"Infections are one of the key determinants of early morbidity and mortality of patients with SLE, strongly linked to disease activity and immunosuppression."

Randomized clinical trials evaluating the effect of bDMARD or tsDMARD treatment in patients with psoriatic arthritis were included in the analysis.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis had significantly higher levels of IgA anti-Pc-p27 antibodies and higher levels of IgG anti-Pc-p27 antibodies when compared with healthy controls.

“The lack of a biomarker of osteoarthritis has hindered development of effective therapies for this common disease,” investigators explained.

John Cush, MD, discusses his CCR West presentation “Rheumatology Year in Review: 2022.” 

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Rheumatology Network's highlights from the week ending October 22, 2022.

John Cush, MD, discusses his presentation “Rheumatoid Arthritis: How Early is Too Early to Diagnose and Treat?”

E Michael Lewiecki, MD, discusses his CCR West presentation “Sequential Therapy in Osteoporosis: When Does the Order Matter?”

E Michael Lewiecki, MD, discusses his CCR West presentation “When is Osteopenia Osteoporosis?”

“Exercise is an important component of the treatment of fibromyalgia, but there was not a consensus understanding of the effect of various exercise programs on the quality of life, pain, and physical function of people with fibromyalgia.”