Arthritis and rheumatism
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Jul 2012
Association of industry funding with the outcome and quality of randomized controlled trials of drug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.
To assess the association of industry funding with the characteristics, outcome, and reported quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of drug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). ⋯ Industry funding was not associated with a higher likelihood of positive outcomes of published RCTs of drug therapy for RA, and industry-funded RCTs performed significantly better than non-industry-funded RCTs in terms of reporting the use of some key methodologic quality measures.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Jul 2012
Associations of varus thrust and alignment with pain in knee osteoarthritis.
To investigate associations of varus thrust and varus static alignment with pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). ⋯ In patients with knee OA, varus thrust, and possibly varus static alignment, were associated with pain, specifically during weight-bearing activities. Treatment of varus thrust (e.g., via bracing or gait modification) may lead to improvement of symptoms.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Jul 2012
Comparative StudyInterferon-γ release assay versus tuberculin skin test prior to treatment with golimumab, a human anti-tumor necrosis factor antibody, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or ankylosing spondylitis.
To evaluate the performance of an interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) versus the standard tuberculin skin test (TST) as a screening tool for latent tuberculosis (TB) infection prior to the initiation of anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy in patients with autoimmune inflammatory diseases. ⋯ In the absence of a true gold standard test for latent TB infection, results of this comparison of IGRA and TST in a large cohort of patients with rheumatic diseases suggest that the IGRA provides greater specificity and possibly greater sensitivity than the TST.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Jul 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudySafety and efficacy of esreboxetine in patients with fibromyalgia: a fourteen-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial.
To evaluate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of multiple fixed dosages of esreboxetine for the treatment of fibromyalgia. ⋯ Esreboxetine was generally well tolerated and was associated with significant improvements in pain, FIQ, PGIC, and fatigue scores compared with placebo. The lack of a dose-response relationship in both the efficacy and safety analyses suggests that esreboxetine at a dosage of 4 mg/day would offer clinical benefit with the least risk of drug exposure.
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Arthritis and rheumatism · Jul 2012
Decreased intrinsic brain connectivity is associated with reduced clinical pain in fibromyalgia.
A major impediment to the development of novel treatment strategies for fibromyalgia (FM) is the lack of an objective marker that reflects spontaneously reported clinical pain in patients with FM. Studies of resting-state intrinsic brain connectivity in FM have demonstrated increased insular connectivity to the default mode network (DMN), a network whose activity is increased during nontask states. Moreover, increased insular connectivity to the DMN was associated with increased spontaneous pain levels. However, as these analyses were cross-sectional in nature, they provided no insight into dynamic changes in connectivity or their relationship to variations in self-reported clinical pain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate longitudinal changes in the intrinsic brain connectivity of FM patients treated with nonpharmacologic interventions known to modulate pain levels in this patient population, and to test the hypothesis that the reduction of DMN-insula connectivity following therapy would correlate with diminished pain. ⋯ Our findings suggest that intrinsic brain connectivity can be used as a candidate objective marker that reflects changes in spontaneous chronic pain within individual FM patients. We propose that intrinsic connectivity measures could potentially be used in either research or clinical settings as a complementary, more objective outcome measure for use in FM.