In the complex web of interactions between systemic inflammatory response, rheumatic disease and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), what is the potential for using rheumatologic therapies to treat other medical conditions linked to inflammation? Some medical researchers have looked at cardiac conditions, and others have examined the overlap with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Positive effects…
SAN DIEGO—Increasingly, technological advances are placing new tools into the hands of office-based rheumatologists. And they don’t have to cost a lot in capital equipment outlays by the medical group, because some of the best advances can be accessed via the device that is already in most doctors’ pockets, their smartphone. Smartphone technology gets more…
SAN DIEGO—A hormone secreted by the parathyroid gland is both a builder and a destroyer of bone in humans, with important implications for a variety of conditions treated by rheumatologists. In the Oscar Gluck, MD, Memorial Lecture at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, Henry Kronenberg, MD, chief of the Endocrine Division at Massachusetts…
SAN DIEGO—In a session at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Kam Nola, PharmD, MS, professor in the College of Pharmacy and vice chair in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., updated participants on new medications and new indications for rheumatology treatments and safety labeling changes approved by the U.S. Food…
SAN DIEGO—The Next Accreditation System, the newest process for evaluating medical residency and fellowship programs and their participants, including future rheumatologists, was implemented in 2014 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The system introduced specialty-specific milestones designed to reflect significant points in professional development. Milestones are defined by ACGME as a rubric…
SAN DIEGO—In a presentation on what rheumatology nurses should know in their daily practice about disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, Jessica Farrell, PharmD, highlighted the importance of educating and counseling patients about the range of treatments and applications for rheumatologic conditions. Dr. Farrell, a clinical pharmacist at the…
SAN DIEGO—In a roundup of current research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) presented at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, Mark C. Genovese, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., urged his audience to reflect on the impact therapy advances have made on RA. “In…
SAN DIEGO—During a session at the ACR/ARHP 2017 Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, three representatives from the federal government described several of the government’s varied national strategies and agencies that are tackling pain. All of these strategies are affected by the current national epidemic of opioid overdoses and the need for safer analgesic prescribing. But the…
SAN DIEGO—What does cannabis offer to the treatment and management of rheumatology patients and the range of pain states they experience? What do we really know about its long-term effects? These are hard questions to answer with currently available data and a reality nuanced by complications cannabis advocates don’t always recognize, according to two experts…
SAN DIEGO—At the ACR/ARHP 2017 Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, a session on how to promote shared decision making with patients highlighted the role of the multidisciplinary professional team. And perhaps just as importantly, it noted the importance of providers recognizing their own implicit biases, which can get in the way of shared decision making. Presenters…