The HCPLive Rheumatology condition center page is a comprehensive resource for clinical news and insights on rheumatologic disease. This page consists of interviews, articles, podcasts, and videos on the research, treatment and development of therapies for arthritis, gout, nr-AxSpA, and more.
April 22nd 2024
Prolonged modified fasting, in a multimodal medical approach, may help patients with fibromyalgia improve pain and psychosomatic symptoms.
"REEL" Time Patient Counseling™: Integrating Biosimilars into the Clinical Conversation
View More
Cases and Conversations™: Keeping Up with Novel Approaches to Managing ANCA-Associated Vasculitis
November 2024
Register Now!
EGPA: Highlighting the Patient Journey to Improve the Differential Diagnosis and Accelerate the Initiation of Guideline-Based Care
View More
Expert Illustrations & Commentaries™: Envisioning Novel Therapeutic Approaches to Managing ANCA-associated Vasculitis
View More
Clinical Consultations™: Optimal Approaches to Recognizing and Treating ANCA-Associated Vasculitis
View More
The pundits are going to have their field day with this one. "The danger [with this Bill] is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it.
Managing obesity in patients who have knee osteoarthritis
November 5th 2009Obesity is a modifiable risk factor for knee osteoarthritis (OA). Weight loss may reduce the risk of knee OA, and increased levels of physical activity may result in improvements in disability-related outcomes. However, intensity of physical activity is not as important in weight loss as total energy expended.
Identifying and managing pulmonary arterial hypertension
November 4th 2009Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) may lead to increased pulmonary vascular resistance, compromised vasoreactivity, right heart failure, and death. PAH, a subset of pulmonary hypertension (PH), classically is associated with systemic sclerosis but also occurs with other rheumatologic conditions. Early diagnostic strategies are essential. The symptoms of PAH often are nonspecific; the most common presenting symptom is dyspnea.
Aggressive Osteoporosis Treatment Could Reduce Hip Fracture Rate 25 Percent
November 2nd 2009A study examining the efficacy of Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Healthy Bones Program found that an aggressive, multi-disciplinary approach that more closely involves orthopedic surgeons prevented 970 hip fractures in 2007.
Subjective symptoms influence patients’ carpal tunnel surgery decisions
November 2nd 2009Subjective symptoms are the most important consideration for patients who have carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in deciding whether to undergo carpal tunnel release. Those who cancel surgery have self-reported outcome scores similar to those who choose to undergo the procedure.
Sonographic guidance boosts intra-articular injection performance
November 2nd 2009Intra-articular injections performed with sonographic image guidance are significantly superior to palpation-guided methods in all outcome measures. They significantly reduce procedural pain, reduce pain scores at outcome, increase responder rates, and reduce nonresponder rates.
Cartilage mineralization is common in end-stage osteoarthritis
November 2nd 2009Contrary to earlier reports, mineralization of articular cartilage is a common event in end-stage osteoarthritis (OA) and is closely associated with disease progression. There is a significant correlation between clinical symptoms and the amount of mineralized cartilage.
Vertebroplasty not worthwhile for patients with osteoporosis?
November 2nd 2009For patients with recent osteoporotic vertebral fractures, there is no significant benefit of vertebroplasty compared with a sham procedure. Only modest improvement was seen over time in patients who underwent both procedures in overall scores for pain and scores for pain at rest and during the night, physical functioning, and quality of life.
Cardiovascular disease linked with inflammatory arthritis
November 2nd 2009Patients who have inflammatory arthritis and receive care from general practitioners have an almost 2-fold increased risk of prevalent cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared with those who do not. Therefore, assessing CVD risk and using prevention strategies in every patient who has inflammatory arthritis is important.
Rheumatoid arthritis and lupus are genetically distinct
November 2nd 2009Although rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have some genes in common, including STAT4, HLA, and PTPN22, none of 9 other newly identified genes for SLE is associated with RA. This finding supports the notion that the genetic component of each disease contributes significantly to the different disease phenotypes.
Survey results spur new osteoporosis management tool
October 31st 2009Patients fear the impact of osteoporosis on their quality of life far more than physicians think, according to an International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) survey (Table), but they lack the information and tools needed to address their concerns and improve their osteoporosis management. As a result, the IOF launched a community-based networking program designed to promote better communication among patients with osteoporosis and their physicians and achieve improved understanding and outcomes.
Studies geared to enhancing ACL injury prevention efforts
October 30th 2009Determining which components of the typical 90-minute anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury prevention program work best to reduce injuries is the focus of a new study at the University of Michigan Bone & Joint Injury Prevention & Rehabilitation Center. The researchers suggest that improved efforts in ACL injury prevention could result in improved osteoarthritis (OA) prevention, noting that close to 70% of ACL injuries lead to an early onset of painful OA.
Functional ankle instability linked with low back pain?
October 29th 2009The jump protocol with analysis of time to stabilization (TTS) can discriminate between persons with and those without functional ankle instability (FAI), according to researchers in the Department of Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Persons with FAI have delayed trunk muscle reflexes to a sudden perturbation, supporting theoretical and experimental descriptions of proximal adaptations associated with ankle injury.
Biomechanics studies help explain whiplash injury
October 28th 2009The mechanism of whiplash injuries remains less than completely understood, partly because obvious tissue damage detectable by radiography or MRI may not accompany the injury, according to researchers at Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, in Chongqing, China.
New Rheumatoid Arthritis Network Aims to Personalize Treatment
October 26th 2009A new network from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) will create a national database that aims to see how rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients respond to different RA drugs, and then use that information to further personalize RA treatment.