Improving access to pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prescribing in a primary care setting.

Although emtricitabine-tenofovir was approved for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2012, use by persons at risk of acquiring HIV has been limited. Because many primary care providers lacked familiarity and comfort prescribing PrEP, at our institution PrEP prescribing was concentrated among the infectious disease specialists, effectively limiting access. This project sought to increase the number of patients receiving new prescriptions for PrEP.

Spinal IgG4-Related Hypertrophic Pachymeningitis with Spinal Cord Compression: Case Report and Literature Review.

Background: Back pain is a leading reason for patients to seek medical attention. Although musculoskeletal causes are common, patients can also present with rarer etiologies.

Case Description: A 50-year-old man presented with 2 months of isolated upper back pain initially suspected to be secondary to overuse muscular strain.

Diagnostic accuracy of administrative data algorithms in the diagnosis of osteoarthritis: a systematic review.

Background: Administrative health care data are frequently used to study disease burden and treatment outcomes in many conditions including osteoarthritis (OA). OA is a chronic condition with significant disease burden affecting over 27 million adults in the US. There are few studies examining the performance of administrative data algorithms to diagnose OA.

Is there an association between whole-body pain with osteoarthritis-related knee pain, pain catastrophizing, and mental health?

Background: Greater levels of self-reported pain, pain catastrophizing, and depression have been shown to be associated with persistent pain and functional limitation after surgeries such as TKA. It would be useful for clinicians to be able to measure these factors efficiently.

Questions/purposes: We asked: (1) What is the association of whole-body pain with osteoarthritis (OA)-related knee pain, function, pain catastrophizing, and mental health? (2) What is the sensitivity and specificity for different cutoffs for body pain diagram region categories in relation to pain catastrophizing?

Methods: Patients (n = 267) with knee OA undergoing elective TKA at one academic center and two community orthopaedic centers were enrolled before surgery in a prospective cohort study.

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in hospitalized patients with systemic sclerosis: higher mortality than patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: Systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma) patients have an increased risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), possibly mediated through inflammatory and fibrotic mechanisms affecting the macrovasculature and microvasculature. We utilized the US Nationwide Inpatient Sample to assess the frequency of and mortality risk associated with ASCVD among hospitalized SSc patients.

Methods: We examined the frequency and mortality associated with primary diagnoses and procedures related to ASCVD among adult SSc patients using data from 1993 to 2007.

Pegloticase and the patient with treatment-failure gout.

Gout is an inflammatory arthritis characterized by sudden, painful inflammation. Gout can affect any joint in an asymmetric distribution. Gouty attacks may be isolated or can be followed by years of recurrent flares.

Female genital mutilation: what every American dermatologist needs to know.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) has become more common in the United States with increased immigration to the United States of individuals from areas where the practice is endemic. Although the root causes of FGM may be multiple, the practice is banned in the United States on all women under age 18 and is increasingly being outlawed by individual state legislatures. American dermatologists should expect to see a growing number of patients having undergone FGM who may present with complications ranging from keloids and epidermal cysts to clitoral neuromas and abscess formation.