Reactive Arthritis News

CHICAGO — Rheumatologists should make greater efforts to collaborate with ophthalmologists to better care for patients with inflammatory and systemic eye diseases such as uveitis and scleritis, according to Jim T. Rosenbaum, MD, chief of the division of arthritis and rheumatic diseases at Oregon Health & Science University.

Faced with an increasing incidence and prevalence of autoimmune disease in the United States —approximately 23.5 million Americans are affected across the country, according to the NIH — Bonnie Feldman, MBA, DDS, says it is time to acknowledge what she calls “an invisible epidemic.”

Splashy headlines in the mainstream media that proclaim advances in medicine are often not what they seem. That may be the case with a recent series of FDA approvals surrounding the direct-to-consumer genetic testing platform, 23andMe.

More than 50% of adults aged 45 years or older with some form of arthritis are currently going untreated, despite a substantial proportion experiencing severe symptoms and poor physical function, according to data published in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology.

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.

A study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry reported that arthritis was highly prevalent among older adults with varying degrees of depression.

This episode discusses the case of an 85-year-old man with a history of hypertension and fairly recently diagnosed bladder cancer who presents with oligoarticular asymmetric inflammatory arthritis. Explore the details of this case and learn how bacillus Calmette-Guérin and reactive arthritis are related in this diagnostic conundrum.

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.