this issue, Makrygiannakis and colleagues study the eff ect on synovial citrullination of treatment with two commonly used drugs in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [1]. Th ey found by immuno histo chemistry that intracellular citrullination, as deter mined by F95 antibody staining, as well as peptidyl arginine deiminase (PAD) expression were correlated with measures of synovial infl ...

falls into the third category of CMC patients. However , longitudinal studies by Valdimarsson et al.4 suggest that some patients may move between Types III and IV and that these two groups could belong to a spectrum, the position of the patient within this spectrum being determined by factors such as fungal virulence or antigenic load. The management of patients with CMC involves both the ident...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is mediated by a proinflam-matory cytokine network with TNF at its apex. Accordingly , drugs that block TNF have demonstrated significant efficacy in the treatment of RA. A great deal of experimental evidence also strongly implicates B cells in the pathogenesis of RA. Yet, it remains unclear whether these two important players and the therapies that target them are mec...

Members of the TGF-beta superfamily are important regulators of skeletal development. TGF-betas signal through heteromeric type I and type II receptor serine/threonine kinases. When over-expressed, a cytoplasmically truncated type II receptor can compete with the endogenous receptors for complex formation, thereby acting as a dominant-negative mutant (DNIIR). To determine the role of TGF-betas ...

An association between osteoarthritis (OA) and radiographic evidence of chon-drocalcinosis (CC) has been recognised for years. Crystals of calcium pyrophos-phate dihydrate (CPPD) may be found in synovial fluid from patients with OA who are relatively asymptomatic as well as from those who are experiencing an acute flare up of joint pain due to an attack of pseudogout. Whether CC is the cause of...

In this issue of CLINICS we highlight a study by Lima et al. on the relation of delirium to post-discharge mortality and various other measured parameters, as observed prospectively in 199 hospitalized patients, aged 60 years or more. A highly significant correlation was found between the occurrence of delirium and mortality over a 2 year follow up period, as shown in Figure 1. However, accordi...

5 Cader MZ, Filer A, Hazlehurst J et al. Performance of the 2010 ACR/EULAR criteria for rheumatoid arthritis: comparison with 1987 ACR criteria in a very early syno-vitis cohort. Efficacy of ambrisentan in the treatment of digital ulcers in patients with systemic sclerosis: a preliminary study SIR, SSc is characterized by fibrotic thickening of the skin and internal organs and widespread vascul...

Background: Low-field MRI (LF-MRI) is a useful Imaging technique for the diagnosis and in follow-up of high-impact rheumatologic pathology 1 . However, use not widespread due to high cost other techniques such as Musculoskeletal sonography 2 The Rheumatology Unit HUVM owns (ECO /MRI) standardized protocol LF-MRI 3 , which performed by rheumatologist applied routine clinical practice. We describ...

The general pattern of healthy growth is quite similar from one individual to another, but there is considerable individual variability in size attained and rate of growth at different ages, with respect both to the body as a whole and to its specific parts. Both the whole body and its parts, therefore, must be measured, and the study of growth is syno-nimous to a large extent with measurements...