Rheumatologists News and Research

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Pfizer seeks FDA support for its new anti-rheumatoid arthritis pill

Pfizer is waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to approve its new pill for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) - the first oral biologic for treating this ailment.

8 May 2012

Many RA patients more likely to develop lower GI disease

Add lower gastrointestinal (GI) problems such as ulcers, bleeding and perforations to the list of serious complications facing many rheumatoid arthritis patients. They are at greater risk for GI problems and gastrointestinal-related death than people without the disease, a Mayo Clinic study shows.

4 Apr 2012

FDA panel favors continued research on novel pain medicine

A panel of experts for the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) this Monday recommended that the federal government should allow continued testing of an experimental class of pain drugs for arthritis, despite links to bone decay and joint failure.

13 Mar 2012

Akeso Medical Imaging starts clinical study for proof of concept of imaging device for rheumatoid arthritis disease activity monitoring and control

Akeso Medical Imaging BV, announces today the start of a clinical study with their novel imaging device for assessment of joint inflammation in patient with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this proof of concept study, Akeso’s imaging device will be compared to other methods to assess disease status, such as the DAS-28 score, Ultrasound and in some cases MRI. The study will be performed at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) in cooperation with Regional Rheumatology Centre Eindhoven (RRC). Seventy subjects will be included; sixty RA patients with varying degrees of inflammation of the joints of hands and wrists at the time of examination and a control group of ten subjects.

1 Mar 2012

Ultrasound makes arthritis evaluation and treatment quicker and more accurate

Ultrasound is transforming the way arthritis is diagnosed and treated, making evaluation and treatment quicker and more accurate. The new approach is dubbed fast arthritis sonographic evaluation and treatment, or FAST, by rheumatologists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center who are leading its development.

7 Feb 2012

Patients with PsA may benefit from new medications and surgeries

Medications or biologic agents that target T-cells, white blood cells involved in the body's immune system, appear to offer significant benefit to patients suffering from psoriatic arthritis (PsA), a type of arthritis that affects up to 48 percent of patients with the skin disease psoriasis, according to a new review article in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

19 Jan 2012

Progress report on commercialization of BENLYSTA to be announced at JPMorgan Healthcare Conference

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. will today announce its priority goals for 2012 and report on progress with the commercialization of BENLYSTA (belimumab), the first approved drug for systemic lupus in 56 years, during a presentation this afternoon by H. Thomas Watkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, to financial analysts and investors at the 30th Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

9 Jan 2012

Cardinal Health launches infusion room management tool for community rheumatologists

Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions today launched InfusaTrack, a Web-based infusion room management tool that makes it easier for community rheumatology practices to offer in-office infusion therapy services to patients.

7 Jan 2012

ACR special issue focuses on assessing adult pain

Assessment of patient outcomes allows physicians and researchers to measure the success or failure of diagnostics and treatments that patients receive. One set of measurement tools focuses on assessing adult pain and is included in a special issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), providing physicians and researchers with a single resource of 250 patient outcomes measurements in rheumatology.

17 Nov 2011

Patients with lupus nephritis ESRD choose hemodialysis as initial therapy

Newly published research shows that more patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) caused by lupus nephritis choose hemodialysis as their initial kidney replacement therapy over peritoneal dialysis and preemptive kidney transplantation.

7 Nov 2011

New long-term data from Abbott's HUMIRA plus methotrexate Phase 3 studies on RA

Abbott today announced results from long-term open-label extensions of the PREMIER and DE019 Phase 3 studies, which evaluated HUMIRA (adalimumab) plus methotrexate (MTX) for up to eight years in patients with early moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and up to 10 years in patients with long-standing moderate to severe RA, respectively.

7 Nov 2011

Early treatment with rheumatologist may decrease costly interventions in people with RA

Early and appropriate treatment by a rheumatologist may decrease costly interventions —such as orthopedic surgery — in people with rheumatoid arthritis, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago.

7 Nov 2011

$New data from Savient's KRYSTEXXA Phase III trial on refractory chronic gout$

New data from Savient's KRYSTEXXA Phase III trial on refractory chronic gout

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that data providing further clarity and context surrounding the risk for and management of infusion reactions that may occur with KRYSTEXXA (pegloticase) in the treatment of refractory chronic gout (RCG) patients will be presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago.

7 Nov 2011

UC Davis, UCSF seek to predict and prevent osteoarthritis in young people

How people walk, jump and run and how their knees look in an MRI scanner may hold the secret to predicting years or even decades in advance whether they will develop osteoarthritis, the common degenerative joint disease that strikes half of all Americans by the time they reach the age of 70.

7 Oct 2011

CSRO survey explores impact of health insurance barriers

The Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations today released the findings of a nationwide survey that explored the impact of health insurance barriers such as prior authorization and step therapy on the ability of rheumatologists to provide effective care to patients.

1 Oct 2011

Long-term immunosuppressants improve survival for lupus patients with ESKD

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown that close supervision by rheumatologists and the use of immunosuppressant drugs improve the survival of lupus patients with end-stage kidney disease—a finding that could reverse long-standing clinical practice.

21 Sep 2011

Akeso Medical Imaging closes first financing round to develop imaging device for rheumatoid arthritis disease activity monitoring and control

Akeso Medical Imaging BV, a spin-off from Philips Research, announces today the closure of its first financing round led by Thuja Capital Healthcare Seed Fund with additional financing from the Brabant Spin-Off Fund and Point-One Innovation Fund.

20 Sep 2011

ACR launches Simple Tasks campaign to raise awareness on rheumatic diseases

The American College of Rheumatology has launched its Simple Tasks campaign. The initiative aims to raise awareness of the severe impact of rheumatic diseases - such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and gout - on the U.S. population and to highlight the importance of rheumatologists in the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.

20 Sep 2011

New guidelines for the treatment of acromegaly, a serious growth hormone disorder

It’s said a lot can happen in seven days. In seven years, a lot has happened in the understanding of acromegaly, a debilitating condition that causes a patient to have too much growth hormone. It’s seven years since the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists last produced guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acromegaly. Their 2004 guidelines were just 13 pages long. Their latest, the 2011 guidelines, have grown – to 44 pages.

31 Aug 2011

Study: More attention needs to be paid for cartilage during RA diagnosis

This could lead to a paradigm shift in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis: rheumatologists at the Medical University of Vienna have discovered, through a secondary study involving 3,000 female patients, that the condition of the cartilage in inflammatory joint rheumatism needs to be paid more attention than has previously been the case. Until now, the focus lay mainly on investigating the damage to the bone.

23 Aug 2011