CHICAGO—Caryn A. Libbey, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, described the evolving in our understanding of amyloid at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. Amyloidosis is a rare disease that is often underdiagnosed and undertreated. “Even though this disease has been around for 150 years, I still consider it…
A 56-year-old African American man presents to the emergency department with polyarthralgias and a fever of 103ºF. One month prior to admission, he presented with right knee pain and swelling. Blood cultures grew S. epidermidis. He was treated for presumed septic arthritis complicated by MSSE bacteremia. He was treated with meropenem and a prolonged course…
Case A 46-year-old Caucasian female presented to the outpatient rheumatology clinic where she had been followed for several years. Her chief complaint was pain in her right knee, posterior right thigh and right hip that had begun gradually over the previous three weeks. Her past medical history was significant for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), obesity and…
Clear. Complete. Concise. These three Cs describe ideal patient record keeping, which is why they are among the key reasons to implement a clinical documentation information (CDI) program into your rheumatology practice. Not only will CDI help you accurately document the full picture of each patient’s clinical status, but it also promotes high-quality care and…
The FDA is strengthening its warning that canagliflozin and dapagliflozin may increase the risk for acute kidney injury in some patients. Also, the FDA has issued a warning that patients should not exceed recommended doses of loperamide due to increased risks of serious cardiac events…
SAN FRANCISCO—The Kveim-Siltzbach skin test for a diagnosis of sarcoidosis was developed in 1941, then popularized in 1961. Since then, the knowledge base about the disease has not expanded much, said Kristin Highland, MD, who has dual appointments at Cleveland Clinic’s Respiratory Institute and Orthopedics and Rheumatology Institute. “We don’t know a whole lot more…
“Treat to target regardless of disease activity level” tops the list of recommendations for both early and established RA in the 2015 Guideline for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. The guideline addresses six major topics, including DMARDs, glucocorticoids and biologics, and includes 74 recommendations. These recommendations are not prescriptive, and the treatment decisions should be made by physicians and patients together…
The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) announced the availability of its 2015 Guideline for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) during the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Francisco. An early draft of the recommendations was presented at last year’s meeting in Boston, and the final recommendations are now available on the ACR website. The…
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an acquired, sporadic, autoimmune, connective tissue disease with two subsets: limited cutaneous scleroderma (lcSSc) and diffuse cutaneous scleroderma (dcSSc). In the U.S., the annual incidence is about 20 cases per 1 million adults, with a prevalence of about 240 cases per 1 million adults.1 As with other connective tissue disorders, SSc…
As the literature on comorbidities linked to psoriatic arthritis (PsA) expands, it’s becoming more difficult for clinicians to keep up with what comorbidities should be assessed and how these comorbidities affect treatment selection. Given this, rheumatologists at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, Cleveland Clinic and Hospital for Special Surgery in New…