Rheumatic Disease

With more than 300,000 children with arthritis and other rheumatic conditions across the United States, and fewer than 350 pediatric rheumatologists to treat them, Monica L. Friedman, DO, of Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, is on the front lines of the growing rheumatology shortage.

Among patients with rheumatic diseases, treatment with any biologic increases the risk for tuberculosis, both reactivation and new-onset, with an incidence rate among biologic users that is 10 times higher in South Africa than in European countries, according to data published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

ATLANTA — The incidence of opioid-related hospitalizations among patients with musculoskeletal conditions increased markedly over the past 2 decades, with continued growth among patients with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, according to a presentation at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting.

ATLANTA — More than one-third of patients with rheumatic diseases reported using marijuana to relieve pain with minimal guidance from their physicians, according to findings presented at ACR/ARP 2019.

Concomitant steroid-pulse treatment and baseline lymphopenia were among risk factors for pneumocystis pneumonia among a cohort of patients with rheumatic diseases receiving steroid treatment, according to findings published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

There are endless idioms about blood. It is thicker than water, but one cannot get it from a stone. Truman Capote wrote about the cold version, rock band Foreigner sang about the hot version. When it comes to rheumatic diseases, researchers are out for blood — blood-based biomarkers, that is.

Historians attribute Philip II of Macedon — father of Alexander the Great — as the source of the motto and political principle known as “divide and conquer.” As a ruling technique, the maxim worked, with Phillip ultimately ruling over most of classical Greece; a success that would be repeated with Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte in the centuries to follow.

ORLANDO — Treatment of pediatric patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis with medications available to their adult counterparts is often blocked by exclusions in insurance policies and outdated step therapy requirements, according to a presentation at the Rheumatology Nurses Society Annual Conference.

Opening dialogue between regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical companies and clinicians to develop and implement novel clinical trial designs could be one possible way to increase access to new medicines for patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to a commentary published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.