Our guest this week is Dr. Tony Merriman, whose latest work: “Association of Gout Polygenic Risk Score With Age at Disease Onset and Tophaceous Disease in European and Polynesian Men With Gout“, attempted to determine whether a gout polygenic risk score (PRS) is associated with age at gout onset and tophaceous disease in European, East Polynesian, and West Polynesian men and women with gout. However, what this study found regarding the predictability of these associations, specifically how it...

This week we get to “The Heart of the Matter” a little differently. To begin, our guest is the first author of a manuscript whose objective was to determine the prevalence and correlation of subclinical myocardial inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), titled: “Myocardial Inflammation, Measured using 18-FDG-PET-CT is associated with Disease Activity in Rheumatoid Arthritis“. Her name is Dr. Isabelle Amigues, and her story of survival and reinvention (much like the...

Our guest this week, Dr. Alexandru-Emil Matei, is the first author of a study that endeavored to evaluate immune cell activation in scleroderma. His study, written for the completion of his medical training in Romania is titled: “Identification of a Distinct Monocyte-Driven Signature in Systemic Sclerosis Using Biophysical Phenotyping of Circulating Immune Cells“ (recently published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology”) performed biophysical phenotyping of circulating immune cells by employing...

Caring for older adults who suffer from rheumatic disease comes with it the need to manage multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and geriatric syndromes. Often, shifting priorities for those suffering with rheumatic musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) is needed, sometimes leading to a prescribing cascade. The practice of ‘deprescribing’, an approach to optimize medication use to deliver a more ‘goal-concordant’ type of care was the focus of Dr. Una Makris and Dr. Jiha Lee’s latest research: “Optimizing...

In a study recently published in “ACR Open Rheumatology” titled: “Geographic Variation in Disease Burden and Mismatch in Care of Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis in the United States“, first author Dr. Sharon Dowell set out to understand some of the factors associated with regional variation of rheumatoid arthritis in the United States. Sharon Dowell, MD presents her study’s findings and conclusions. ACR’s RISE Team member, Tracy Johansson, MS, joins us as well to discuss how RISE attempts...

Pulmonary hypertension (PH), being a serious complication of systemic sclerosis (SSc), develops late in the course of SSc and carries with it a poor prognosis. With the median survival of about 3 years, new evidence suggests that early diagnosis and treatment can significantly improve survival. Joining us this week is Christopher P Denton PhD FRCP, senior author of “Dynamic Prediction of Pulmonary Hypertension in Systemic Sclerosis Using Landmark Analysis,” published in Arthritis and...

Dr. Joshua Baker, first author of a paper recently published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology”, “Associations Between Low Serum Urate, Body Composition, and Mortality“, is our guest today. Dr. Baker, recognizing the controversy in whether low serum urate or uric acid (UA) level contribute to adverse outcomes, set out to evaluate the relation between low serum UA levels and sarcopenia, to assess whether sarcopenia confounds associations between these low levels and mortality. 

When rheumatology concepts battle it out in a team bracket tournament, you get “Rheum Madness”! “A place for everyone who is crazy about rheumatology to connect, collaborate and compete” in an online, learning experience, created by Dr. David Leverenz. His body of work, “Rheum Madness: Creating an Online Community of Inquiry”, featured in this episode, analyzes participant engagement and the presence of the online community of inquiry within its first year. Dr. Leverenz is an educator and...

Osteoarthritis is incredibly common, affecting more than 500 million people across the globe. It is a significant cause of pain and disability and carries high healthcare costs and societal burdens. Around the world, there are not enough rheumatology specialists to treat all the patients with OA, and in many countries, OA management is coordinated by primary care internists. However, despite good guidelines recommending first-line evidence-based treatments with muscle strengthening, physical...

In this week’s episode, we’ll be looking at a paper recently published in “ACR Open Rheumatology” titled: “Machine Learning Applied to Patient-Reported Outcomes to Classify Physician-Derived Measures of Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity“. This study used machine learning tools to investigate whether longitudinal patient-reported outcome data can be a proxy for Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI), presenting interesting findings that may impact the practice of rheumatology.  Our...

This week, we welcome Dr. Ruth Fernandez Ruiz to our show, a physician-scientist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. Dr. Fernandez Ruiz’s award-winning work focuses on the interplay of genetic variation, type I interferons, and immune dysregulation in lupus. However, her latest study published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology” entitled: Supporting International Medical Graduates in Rheumatology: A Call to...

Dr. Patricia Katz is our guest this week as she presents her latest study “Sleep Disorders among Individuals with Rheumatoid Arthritis”, recently published in “Arthritis Care & Research”. This study focuses on patients with RA who self-report common sleep problems such as obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome and short sleep and examines the prevalence of these disorders plus their potential negative health implications. Dr. Katz shares with us her methods, findings and...

In this episode, Dr. Shanmugam discusses “A Randomized, Placebo-controlled Phase 3 Extension Trial of Long-term Safety and Tolerability of Anifrolumab in Active Systemic Lupus Erythematosus”, a three-year long-term study designed to understand the safety of anifrolumab in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). This study, which was recently published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology”, represents the longest placebo-controlled clinical trial performed in SLE to date. She is joined...

In this episode, we welcome the lead author of “Deucravacitinib, a Tyrosine Kinase 2 Inhibitor, in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A phase 2, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial” Dr. Eric Morand of Monash University. The objective of this multicenter clinical trial in lupus (recently published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology”) was to assess the efficacy of deucravacitinib in a phase II trial in adult patients with active lupus. Dr. Morand’s methods, results and ultimate...

Join us this week as we interview the lead author of “Genicular Nerve Block for Pain Management in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial”, Dr. Michael Shanahan. Dr. Shanahan’s study, most recently published in “Arthritis & Rheumatology” attempts to determine the efficacy of ultrasound-guided genicular nerve block in managing pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Dr. Shanahan discusses his team’s methods, results and conclusions of this paper plus...

This week, our guest is Dr. Grace Lo, first author of “Association Between Walking for Exercise and Symptomatic and Structural Progression in Individuals with Knee Osteoarthritis: Data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative Cohort” And Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine. The objective of her study: To assess the relationship between walking for exercise and symptomatic and structural disease progression in individuals with knee OA. In this episode, she shares her methods and...

This week on ‘Journals’, Dr. Shanmugam has invited Dr Joann B Sweasy and Dr. Westley Reeves to discuss a paper with an interesting journey, “A Human MSH6 Germline Variant Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Induces Lupus-Like Disease in Mice“. In this paper, we discover that the science is always telling us something, regardless of where we believe we’re headed and where we ultimately end up. This lupus study has such a story. Join us as our guests explain the study’s objective, the...

In this week’s episode, Dr. Shanmugam welcomes Dr. Mary Beth Son, the senior author and corresponding author of “Treatment of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children: Understanding Differences in Results of Comparative Effectiveness Studies.” This study sought to determine whether the application of different MIS-C definitions and differing disease severity in patients participating in two separate comparative cohorts underlay discrepant results. Dr. Jon Hausmann, pediatric...

This week we welcome Dr. Jamie Collins, lead author of “Five-Year Structural Changes in the Knee Among Patients With Meniscal Tear and Osteoarthritis: Data From a Randomized Controlled Trial of Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy Versus Physical Therapy“. We discuss this study’s methods, statistical results and what all that data indicates about the role of exercise and surgery. Later, Dr. Collins offers advice for non-clinicians working with clinicians and explains what it's like being a...

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Dua and Dr. Bolster to the show, co-first authors of “Virtually Speaking: The impact of a Nationwide Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Forum.” and discuss the study’s findings along with their educational collaborative initiative Virtual Fellows in Training (VFIT), which includes a compendium of online courses: Virtual Rheumatology Learning Collaborative (ViRL), Virtual Rheumatology Practicum (ViP Adult & ViP Pediatric) and Virtual Rheumatology Teach...

In our inaugural episode we welcome Dr Monica Yang, lead author for "Reactogenicity of the Messenger RNA SARS–CoV-2 Vaccines Associated With Immunogenicity in Patients With Autoimmune and Inflammatory Disease" and Dr. Maria Danila the Associate Editor for the manuscript. We discuss some of the findings their COVID19 Vaccine Response in Patients with Autoimmune Disease (COVARiPAD) study found, deeply dive into the data that supports their findings and ask what was involved in putting this...

The American College of Rheumatology’s newest podcast series featuring interviews, commentary, and analysis on research from our three peer-reviewed journals. Whether it’s an expert analysis of a manuscript or deep dive with an author – our goal is the same – to understand the impact of the science and bring it from the bench to the bedside.