Tom Collins is a freelance writer in South Florida, who has written about medical topics from nasty infections to ethical dilemmas, runaway tumors to tornado-chasing doctors. He travels the globe gathering conference health news and lives in West Palm Beach.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Paulette Hahn, MD, associate professor of medicine specializing in rheumatology at the University of Florida (UF), said she once treated a patient named Monica, a UF undergraduate who had severe inflammatory muscle disease and severe lung disease. The patient’s disease was under control for the time being, but Monica knew she could take a…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Researchers at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting discussed how they are exploring the immune system in search of groundwork for new rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatments. The new avenues, supported by the Rheumatology Research Foundation, involve T cell adhesion, new understanding of the role of macrophages and insights into the way IgG glycans function. T…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—From diagnosis questions to infection risk to treatment decisions, handling giant cell arteritis (GCA) and polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) comes with a range of challenges for clinicians. Speaking in the ACR Review Course at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, an expert—Rebecca Manno, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine in rheumatology at Johns Hopkins, as well…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—A 70-year-old woman had been diagnosed with rotator cuff disease three years earlier and received an array of treatments. What she hadn’t received was an X-ray. She’d had an MRI, and her doctor—not an orthopedist or a rheumatologist, but a primary care physician—had zeroed in on degenerative changes in her rotator cuff. The problem,…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—A friendly, but stern, voice talks to Joseph Kvedar, MD, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare, from his smartphone. Dr. Kvedar has just woken up. “Good morning, Joe! Here’s the tale of the tape. Your blood pressure and cholesterol are fine. Your sleep deficit is now up to three hours for the week….
Two sets of guidelines—one on managing anti-rheumatic drugs perioperatively for patients undergoing total hip and knee replacements, and another that updates glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis prevention and treatment strategies—will be featured in sessions at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting this month. The Sessions Sunday, Nov. 13, 2:30–3:30 p.m.: Glucocorticoid-Induced Osteoporosis Prevention and Treatment: A New ACR Clinical…
LONDON—New therapies are emerging for the two main forms of large-vessel vasculitis, giant cell arteritis (GCA) and Takayasu’s arteritis—particularly biologic therapies. But for just about every available treatment gap, drawbacks or limited evidence remain, with the results needing to be borne out in larger trials, an expert said at the Annual Congress of the European…
LONDON—Kinase inhibitors’ profile in the world of rheumatic disease therapy is growing, and they are probably going to play an even larger and more central role as time goes on, experts said at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) 2016. But Gary S. Firestein, MD, director of the Clinical and Translational…
LONDON—Rheumatologists need to make the management of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) “a little more complex,” treating different tissues individually and doing more to help treat and prevent co-morbidities, an expert said here at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) 2016. Iain McInnes, MD, PhD, director of the Research Institute for Infection, Immunity…
LONDON—Research continues to advance in understanding the causes, prediction and management of the stages of early arthritis before full-blown clinical disease, and an expert highlighted some of the latest of these encouraging findings at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) 2016. Many of the genetic and environmental risk factors are known,…