Juvenile Arthritis News

The consequences of a child receiving insufficient or inappropriate treatment for a rheumatic disease will last a lifetime — a lifetime that, statistically, will be significantly longer than an adult patient receiving comparably inadequate care. With fewer than 350 pediatric rheumatologists practicing in the United States, children with rheumatic diseases are often relegated to rheumatologists who typically treat adults and, in the absence of a pediatric specialist, do their best to provide care to pediatric patients.

CHICAGO — Children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis demonstrate a higher prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, including abuse and domestic household dysfunction, according to Tamar Rubinstein, MD, MS, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

Maori and Pacific Island children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis are more likely than European children to present with poor prognostic characteristics at diagnosis, despite demonstrating a significantly lower disease incidence, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

The use of wearable devices that track movement is effective in significantly increasing the amount of and time spent performing moderate to vigorous physical activity, with high short-term adherence, among patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, according to findings published in Arthritis Care & Research.

The FDA has approved the subcutaneous formulation of tocilizumab for the treatment of active systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis in patients aged 2 years and older, according to a press release from Genentech.

The increased risk for preterm delivery among pregnant woman with rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis is partially tied to maternal disease activity and corticosteroid use, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

The 2018 Rheumatic Disease Report Card: Raising the Grade on Rheumatology Care in America released today by the American College of Rheumatology demonstrates that access to affordable rheumatology care varied considerably from state to state, with most states averaging a “C” grade.

We begin with a 24-year-old previously healthy female presenting with gradual worsening — over the last few months — migraine-like headaches accompanied by nausea but no vomiting. She was in a usual state of health when she started getting headaches, that were described as intermittent with a deep ache sensation. The headaches were unilateral and would switch from left to right and sometimes occur between the eyes. The patient described the severity as 8 out of 10. The headaches did not wake her from sleep, and she was unsure of what triggered them. She denied hearing loss, tinnitus, numbness or tingling of extremities, weakness, joint pain, joint swelling or rashes. She reported no new medications.

Just 32.1% of reproductive-age women with rheumatic diseases use any kind of prescription contraception, while at the same time more than 70% use at least one fetotoxic medication, according to findings published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Early treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs is associated with improved disease control and outcomes among patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to findings published in Arthritis Care & Research.