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.
SAN FRANCISCO—Men and women have different mechanisms that are at work in producing pain in rheumatic diseases—a little-studied and little-appreciated fact that is crucial to developing and using the right kinds of treatments, an expert in rheumatic disease pain said in a talk at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. The lack of acknowledgment of this…
SAN FRANCISCO—Treatment for transthyretin-related amyloidosis (ATTR) is generating more interest from academic researchers and the pharmaceutical industry, with encouraging early results using a multi-pronged therapeutic approach, a researcher said at a review course held before the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. Amyloidoses are a rare and potentially deadly family of diseases in which misfolded protein builds…
SAN FRANCISCO—Behçet’s disease is a vasculitis that can be hard to pin down, with a wide variety of manifestations, many of which overlap with other auto-inflammatory conditions, an expert said at a clinical review course at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting. The most common feature is oral ulcers, which are expected to be seen at…
SAN FRANCISCO—Let’s say your radiologist comes to you and says that an angiogram gives a diagnosis of CNS vasculitis on four patients, all with acute onset of headache and stroke: One is a 25-year-old woman who is three months pregnant. Another is a 50-year-old man using excessive doses of nasal decongestants. Another is a 40-year-old…
SAN FRANCISCO—Let’s say your radiologist comes to you and says that an angiogram gives a diagnosis of CNS vasculitis on four patients, all with acute onset of headache and stroke: One is a 25-year-old woman who is three months pregnant. Another is a 50-year-old man using excessive doses of nasal decongestants. Another is a 40-year-old…
Seven students pursuing rheumatology-related careers will head to San Francisco in November on a Student and Resident ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Scholarship—awards that are open to students and residents from states that are underserved by rheumatology professionals. The Rheumatology Research Foundation has awarded the students $750–1,500 toward travel expenses and registration for the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting,…
In the late 1990s, Thomas Baranowski, PhD, professor of pediatrics specializing in nutrition at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, applied for a grant. For years, he had been interested in finding ways to get children to change their diet and physical activity. He decided to try a video game, and he got the money…
ROME, Italy—When it comes to thinking about disease modification—a main goal in the treatment of axial spondyloarthritis (axial SpA) and other inflammatory diseases—it’s time to reconsider the concept, an expert said at EULAR 2015, the annual congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). The traditional way of assessing disease modification, inhibiting radiographic progression, is…
Antibody-like molecules that can bind to more than one target—with the goal of having a more powerful effect than if those targets were treated separately in a combination of therapies—could become part of treatment regimens in rheumatic diseases over the next several years, an expert said here in a session at EULAR 2015, the annual…
ROME, Italy—In what researchers say is the first study evaluating cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) findings in early rheumatoid arthritis (ERA) patients, cardiovascular abnormalities were significantly worse in patients with ERA than in matched, healthy controls. The study results were presented at EULAR 2015, the annual congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). Cardiovascular Concerns…