Teresa Fama: Rheumatologist to Chair Public Advisory Council Teresa Fama, MD, is the new chair of the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council (CEPAC). A rheumatologist who practices in Berlin, Vt., Dr. Fama has previous experience in public policy, specifically health policy. Before she began her second career as a physician, Dr. Fama was…
The controversy over vitamin D is hearty enough to confuse even seasoned rheumatologists, says Nathan Wei, MD, The Arthritis Treatment Center, Frederick, Md. “It’s like what you hear with coffee. One week, [a study finds] coffee is … good for you; the next week, there’s a study saying it’s bad for you,” he says. Vitamin…
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…
It takes a great deal of time and money to produce clinical practice guidelines for rheumatic diseases. No matter how well a treatment inhibits inflammatory cytokines, it won’t lower disease activity without one essential factor: patient compliance. “You can’t propose a treatment algorithm in your research that no patient would actually use,” says Veena Ranganath,…
People diagnosed with osteoporosis have almost twice the risk of developing hearing loss as those without the bone-fragile skeletal disease, according to results from a large retrospective study in Taiwan. The study looked at the risk of sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL) using data collected from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance claims and is believed to…
Observation and research have confirmed that patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease than their peers of similar age and gender, and that traditional risk factors and chronic inflammation associated with RA apparently play a significant role in that risk. However, predicting which patients with rheumatoid arthritis are at greater…
(Reuters)—Drug developer XenoPort Inc. said on Tuesday its experimental drug was effective in treating psoriasis, sending its shares up 19% in premarket trading. The oral drug met the main goal in a phase 2 trial of patients with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque-type psoriasis, the company said. XenoPort said it expected to start late-stage trials next year…
ROME, Italy—The traditional approach to trials to assess new biomarkers and related treatments has largely been inefficient, and a better strategy is needed to make stratified treatment available for patients more quickly, an expert said at EULAR 2015, the annual congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). Mahesh Parmar, PhD, director of the Medical…
ROME, Italy—The medical environment is increasingly adapting to the possibilities of optimizing care by individualizing medical treatment and tailoring treatment to disease phenotypes. Data suggest that individualizing exercise therapy, an important treatment modality for rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, can help control disease, maximize function, minimize functional barriers and decrease the risk of co-morbidity.1,2,3 Personalizing exercise…
When the local hospital approaches you about selling your practice and converting it to a provider-based outpatient department, you may want to hear them out. There are many benefits to becoming a department of the hospital, but what would it mean for you and the practice you worked tirelessly to build? What Does It Mean…