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Previous randomized trials demonstrated little or no efficacy of chondroitin sulfate in the treatment of hip or knee osteoarthritis, but a group of Swiss researchers have recently tested the drug in hand osteoarthritis, by randomizing 162 patients with symptomatic and radiographically documented [...]
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In 2010 the FDA approved the use of intravenous pegloticase for the treatment of chronic gout. Two studies enrolled 225 subjects with serum uric acid concentration of > 8 mg/dl and who were intolerant or refractory to allopurinol; all patients had at least one of the following symptoms: more than 3 [...]
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Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors increase the risk of infection in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In order to quantify this risk, investigators in Japan compared the records from 646 patients treated with either etanercept or infliximab and 498 treated with nonbiological drugs.; [...]
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In Holland, a diagnostic rule has been developed for gout, using the data of 381 consecutive patients arrived at the general practitioner because affected by monoarthritis. Within 24 hours from examination, they underwent arthrocentesis, an examination on synovial fluid to search monosodium urate [...]
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The American College of Rheumatology and the European League Against Rheumatism have developed together some new criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis, changing the ones previously published (in 1987). First of all, a working group has examined the data from wide cohort trials on [...]
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Even if genetic factors certainly have an important role, at the basis of the incidence and prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis, no doubt, there are other factors. In order to verify the extent of this disease, some researchers at Mayo Clinic have examined the data relative to cases of rheumatoid [...]
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The traditional administration of colchicine in case of an acute gout attack implies the use of colchicine grains every 1-2 hours until pain control and until gastrointestinal tolerability. This approach has by now been overpassed with the introduction of NSAIDs, but the use of colchicine still has [...]
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According to a Cochrane review in 2008, surgery has been defined the most effective in wrist splints in the symptomatic treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, but it has not been compared with other therapeutical options. Some researchers have enrolled 116 patients with moderate syndrome in whom the [...]
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When there is an acute arthritis, we know that the finding of a normal value of serum urate doesn’t cer-tainly exclude the presence of a gout attack. According to this consideration, some researchers won-dered which is the usual behaviour of serum urate during gout attacks and they have analyzed [...]
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Patients undergoing arthroscopic surgery for meniscal lesions have a higher risk of evolution into knee osteoarthritis, but we don’t know yet whether the meniscal damage is by itself a predisposing cause, even without surgery. In order to study the possible association between meniscal damage and [...]