The role of diet in hyperuricemia and gout
Purpose of review
Although gout's cardinal feature is inflammatory arthritis, it is closely associated with insulin resistance and considered a manifestation of the metabolic syndrome. As such, both gout and hyperuricemia are often associated with major cardiometabolic and renal comorbidities that drive the persistently elevated premature mortality rates among gout patients. To that end, conventional low-purine (i.e., low-protein) dietary advice given to many patients with gout warrant reconsideration.
Recent findings
Recent research suggests that several healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean or Dietary Appro...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: CRYSTAL DEPOSITION DISEASES: Edited by Sara K. Tedeschi Source Type: research
Adherence to gout guidelines: where do we stand?
Purpose of review
Although gout is a common, well-recognized, and extensively researched rheumatologic disease, it continues to be underappreciated and undertreated. Although the prevalence of gout has been rising over the past several decades, adherence to urate lowering therapy continues to be suboptimal. Recent studies have underscored the potential success of guideline-directed therapy.
Recent findings
Adherence to gout treatment continues to be suboptimal according to multinational metaanalyses. Moreover, studies measuring adherence are prone to overestimation and each methodologic approach has intrinsic li...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: CRYSTAL DEPOSITION DISEASES: Edited by Sara K. Tedeschi Source Type: research
Scleroderma epidemiology update
Purpose of review
Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma, SSc) is a rare multisystem autoimmune disease characterized by autoantibodies, vasculopathy, and fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. This review aims to provide an overview and summary of the recent epidemiological studies in systemic sclerosis.
Recent findings
Global trends of scleroderma demonstrate greater prevalence of SSc in European, North, and South American patients compared with East Asian patients. However, the greatest prevalence (47 in 100 000), was found among the indigenous peoples in Canada. Phenotypical differences exist depending on the ...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: EPIDEMIOLOGY AND HEALTH-RELATED SERVICES: Edited by Kenneth G. Saag Source Type: research
Racial, ethnic, and healthcare disparities in rheumatoid arthritis
Purpose of review
This review highlights the available data describing racial and ethnic health disparities among patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States from an epidemiological, disease activity, and wider socioeconomic standpoint.
Recent findings
Despite centralized government initiatives to include more underrepresentative minority populations into research, many of the studies that examined rheumatoid arthritis still fail to include sizeable cohorts of races or ethnic groups other than whites. Evidence is slowly mounting that individual, provider, and system-level barriers exist and contribut...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: EPIDEMIOLOGY AND HEALTH-RELATED SERVICES: Edited by Kenneth G. Saag Source Type: research
Global research collaboration in a pandemic-challenges and opportunities: the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance
Purpose of review
This review discusses the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) Global Rheumatology Alliance (GRA), the reason for its formation, the challenges with running the registry, and future opportunities for global collaborative research in rheumatology.
Recent findings
The GRA has been successful in collecting and publishing a large volume of case data on patients with rheumatic disease with COVID-19. In addition, the GRA has published reviews, opinion pieces, and patient-directed summaries of research to further assist in disseminating timely and accurate information about COVID-19 in rheumatic diseas...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: EPIDEMIOLOGY AND HEALTH-RELATED SERVICES: Edited by Kenneth G. Saag Source Type: research
Editorial introductions
No abstract available (Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology)
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - February 10, 2021 Category: Rheumatology Tags: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTIONS Source Type: research
Recent advances in targeted drug delivery for treatment of osteoarthritis
Purpose of review
Osteoarthritis is associated with severe joint pain, inflammation, and cartilage degeneration. Drugs injected directly into intra-articular joint space clear out rapidly providing only short-term benefit. Their transport into cartilage to reach cellular targets is hindered by the tissue's dense, negatively charged extracellular matrix. This has limited, despite strong preclinical data, the clinical translation of osteoarthritis drugs. Recent work has focused on developing intra-joint and intra-cartilage targeting drug delivery systems (DDS) to enable long-term therapeutic response, which is presented ...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: OSTEOARTHRITIS: Edited by Mukundan Attur Source Type: research
Role of adipose tissues in osteoarthritis
Purpose of review
Epidemiologic studies reveal that the link between obesity and osteoarthritis cannot be uniquely explained by overweight-associated mechanical overload. For this reason, much attention focuses on the endocrine activity of adipose tissues. In addition to the systemic role of visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues, many arguments highlight the involvement of local adipose tissues in osteoarthritis.
Recent findings
Alteration in MRI signal intensity of the infrapatellar fat pad may predict both accelerated knee osteoarthritis and joint replacement. In this context, recent studies show that mese...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: OSTEOARTHRITIS: Edited by Mukundan Attur Source Type: research
Posttraumatic osteoarthritis: what have we learned to advance osteoarthritis?
Purpose of review
Current thinking in the study of posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) is overviewed: the osteoarthritis which follows acute joint injury. The review particularly highlights important publications in the last 18 months, also reflecting on key older literature, in terms of what have we have we learned and have yet to learn from PTOA, which can advance the osteoarthritis field as a whole.
Recent findings
PTOA is a mechanically driven disease, giving insight into mechanical drivers for osteoarthritis. A mechanosensitive molecular tissue injury response (which includes activation of pain, degradative...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: OSTEOARTHRITIS: Edited by Mukundan Attur Source Type: research
The transition from enthesis physiological responses in health to aberrant responses that underpin spondyloarthritis mechanisms
Purpose of review
Despite immunology and translational therapeutics advances in inflammatory arthritis over the past two decades, the enthesis, which is the epicentric of the spondyloarthritis family pathological process, retains many mysteries because of tissue inaccessibility that hampers direct immune study. As entheses are subject to almost continuous mechanical stress and spondyloarthritis is linked to microdamage or injury and joint stress, it is cardinal to understand the physiological changes occurring within the entheses not only to be able to differentiate disease from health but also to understand the transi...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY AND RHEUMATIC DISEASES: Edited by Jose U. Scher Source Type: research
Rheumatology in the era of precision medicine: synovial tissue molecular patterns and treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis
Purpose of review
A critical unmet need in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the identification of biomarkers that predict which of the available medications will be most effective for an individual in order to lower disease activity sooner than is afforded by the current treat-to-target approach. Here we will discuss recent reports examining the potential for synovial tissue molecular, cellular, and spatial profiling in defining objective measures of treatment response and therein developing personalized medicine for RA.
Recent findings
Recent high-dimensional molecular profiling of RA synovium has provided unpreced...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY AND RHEUMATIC DISEASES: Edited by Jose U. Scher Source Type: research
Coronavirus 2019: clinical and neuropathological aspects
Purpose of review
To understand the role of postinfectious autoimmune vascular inflammation in the pathogenesis of coronavirus disease 2019-related neurological illness caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus and its effects on the brain in children and adults.
Recent findings
There are a very small number of postmortem neuropathological series of coronavirus disease 2019-related cerebrovascular and parenchymal disease. However, they fall into at least three major categories, with the majority manifesting those of terminal hypoxia, and others demonstrating inflammatory vascular ...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: VASCULITIS SYNDROMES: Edited by Hasan Yazici and Yusuf Yazici Source Type: research
Intracranial vessel wall imaging
Purpose of review
To give an overview regarding the potential usefulness of vessel wall imaging (VWI) in distinguishing various intracranial vascular diseases, their common imaging features, and potential pitfalls.
Recent findings
VWI provides direct visualization of the vessel wall and allows the discrimination of different diseases such as vasculitis, atherosclerosis, dissection, Moyamoya disease, and reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome. Recent studies showed that concentric and eccentric involvement in the vessel wall, as well as the enhancement pattern were found important for the distinguishing th...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: VASCULITIS SYNDROMES: Edited by Hasan Yazici and Yusuf Yazici Source Type: research
Aortitis: an update
Purpose of review
Aortitis is the inflammation of the aorta due to various causes. Clinical presentations vary as well as the imaging findings. Exact pathogenetic mechanisms or triggering factors, as well as the best diagnostic and monitoring modalities and treatment strategies, are yet to be elucidated. We reviewed recent studies in aortitis and associated diseases.
Recent findings
Multiple cohort studies reporting long-term outcomes in patients with noninfectious aortitis were recently published. Comparative features of isolated aortitis were described. Six angiographic clusters for giant cell arteritis and Ta...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: VASCULITIS SYNDROMES: Edited by Hasan Yazici and Yusuf Yazici Source Type: research
Cerebral vasculitis associated with drug abuse
Purpose of review
To review understand the epidemiology, background, neuropharmacology, and histopathology of literature verified cases, and likely etiopathogenic mechanisms.
Recent findings
There are only a handful of histologically confirmed patients in the literature with cerebral vasculitis because of drug abuse.
Summary
There is little justification for invasive laboratory investigation given the ready availability of highly accurate vascular neuroimaging techniques to dictate management, which usually rests upon avoidance of further exposure and minimizing the secondary neurotoxic effects of the abu...
Source: Current Opinion in Rheumatology - November 30, 2020 Category: Rheumatology Tags: VASCULITIS SYNDROMES: Edited by Hasan Yazici and Yusuf Yazici Source Type: research
