Focus Rheums| ACR Convergence 2024 Previews

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Short Time Between Pregnancies Linked to Osteoporosis

Lisa Rapaport  |  

(Reuters Health)—Women who have pregnancies less than a year apart may have a greater risk for osteoporosis later in life than those who wait longer between babies, a study suggests. Researchers compared the reproductive histories of 239 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis to 298 similar women without thinning bones. Pregnancies no more than 12 months apart…

Biomarkers May Help Differentiate Crohn’s From Colitis

David Douglas  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Serum biomarkers can discriminate between Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), according to Danish and Dutch researchers. “The biomarker assays measure neo-epitopes, which are fragments of extracellular matrix protein degradation,” Joachim Høg Mortensen, a PhD student at Nordic Bioscience in Herlev, Denmark, told Reuters Health by email. “These neo-epitopes are increasingly…

China Gets Tougher for Western Drugmakers

Ben Hirschler  |  

LONDON (Reuters)—The Chinese market is getting tougher for Western pharmaceutical companies as Beijing bears down on a rising healthcare bill and prices come under pressure. The country, which has overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest market for prescription medicines after the U.S., has drawn major investment from global drugmakers in recent years — but…

Psoriatic Disease Linked to Higher Risk of Uveitis & Vice Versa

Rob Goodier  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Two classes of inflammatory diseases, uveitis and psoriatic disease, appear linked, as a diagnosis of one increases the risk of developing the other, new research has found. A study of Danish patient registries found nearly triple the rate of uveitis among patients with psoriatic arthritis compared to the general population, and double…

U.S. Hospitals Urge DOJ Antitrust Probe of Anthem-Cigna Deal

Caroline Humer  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters)—U.S. hospitals urged antitrust regulators this week to consider whether health insurer Anthem Inc’s planned acquisition of rival Cigna Corp would boost healthcare costs. In a letter to the Department of Justice, the hospital industry’s largest lobbying group said combining the No. 1 and No. 5 health insurers threatens to reduce competition in…

Medicare Rule May Needlessly Extend Some Hospital Stays

Lisa Rapaport  |  

(Reuters Health)—A decades old Medicare rule requiring a three-day hospital stay before patients can transfer to skilled nursing facilities may needlessly prolong hospitalizations, a study suggests. Researchers compared the average time patients were hospitalized between 2006 and 2010 in privately administered Medicare Advantage health plans that either stuck to this rule or allowed people to…

37,000 U.S. Infection-Related Deaths Preventable Over 5 Years

Ransdell Pierson  |  

(Reuters)—Closer coordination between healthcare facilities and public health departments could save 37,000 U.S. lives over five years by preventing infections from antibiotic-resistant germs and from Clostridium difficile, according to a government report released on Tuesday. Germs that no longer respond to antibiotics cause more than 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths each year in the…