In a Year in Review session at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, highlighted the latest and most intriguing aspects of clinical research on rheumatic diseases from 2017. His discussion touched on medical therapy, genetics, the effects of bariatric surgery and diet, cancer risk and more…
Case Ms. A is an 82-year-old woman who presented to the rheumatology office for evaluation of osteoporosis. She had been diagnosed with postmenopausal osteoporosis at age 62 after sustaining a right wrist fracture. She was started on alendronate 70 mg weekly and reported medication compliance. At age 79, she sustained an atraumatic right femur fracture….
Opana ER Pulled from U.S. Market Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked Endo Pharmaceuticals to remove oxymorphone hydrochloride extended release (Opana ER) from the U.S. market due to public health consequences related to abuse. The agency has concerns that the risks presented by the treatment do not outweigh its benefits.1 On…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The investigational drug romosozumab led to gains in hip bone mineral density (BMD) that were not seen with teriparatide in older women with osteoporosis transitioning from bisphosphonate therapy in the STRUCTURE study. Amgen’s romosozumab is a monoclonal antibody that inhibits sclerosin, a negative regulator of bone formation. In addition to stimulating bone…
In drug news, a generic 2% diclofenac sodium solution is now available, denosumab is promising to treat osteoporosis, and the FDA has approved sarilumab to treat adults with RA…
Quality assurance and quality improvement (QA/QI) work makes sense to focus on. However, finding the time and resources for QI projects is not always easy. Until now, the business case for QI in rheumatology practice has not always been clear. However, this is changing with implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA)…
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…
By treating mice with antibiotics, researchers found that alterations in the gut microbiome impaired the mechanical properties of bone and depleted splenic B and T cell populations. The researchers suspect the decrease in bone strength resulted from the change in the immune system…
In the good old days, physicians routinely made house calls. The decision to visit the literal bedside of a patient was practical: hospital services were primitive and often offered too little benefit to justify an emergency journey by the patient. These physicians carried leather bags, sometimes called Gladstones, that were filled with instruments for eventualities…
Bone health in general, and osteoporosis in particular, is among the most common conditions seen in rheumatology practices. The ACR recently joined the National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA) to reach out to other stakeholders. “In 2004, the Surgeon General of the United States published a report on osteoporosis that discussed in depth the gaps in…