Publications by authors named "Courtney Arment"

Article Synopsis
  • Sarcoidosis is a disease that causes non-caseating granulomas and can affect various organs, with cardiac involvement potentially leading to serious heart issues like arrhythmias or heart failure.
  • A 43-year-old man with a history of heart palpitations and dental issues experienced cardiac arrest and was later diagnosed with cardiac and pulmonary sarcoidosis.
  • This case emphasizes the importance of thorough medical history and testing to identify rare presentations of sarcoidosis, such as oral involvement, which can have significant implications for patient care.
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Objectives: We aimed to cluster patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on comorbidities and then examine the association between these clusters and RA disease activity and mortality.

Methods: In this population-based study, residents of an eight-county region with prevalent RA on 1 January 2015 were identified. Patients were followed for vital status until death, last contact or 31 December 2021.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effects of TNF-α inhibitors, infliximab and adalimumab, on patients with cardiac sarcoidosis (CS), analyzing their disease progression through imaging and clinical outcomes.
  • A total of 31 patients were observed, showing a significant reduction in their average prednisone dose and a notable decrease in the number of heart segments with elevated FDG uptake after treatment.
  • Results suggest that TNF-α inhibitor therapy in CS patients leads to lower steroid use and minimal cardiac issues, although some patients experienced unplanned hospitalizations.
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Objectives: Whipple's disease (WD) results from infection of the bacteria Tropheryma whipplei (TW). This disease is characterized by macrophage infiltration of intestinal mucosa and primarily affects Caucasian males. Genetic studies of host susceptibility are scarce.

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Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can test either positive or negative for circulating anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) and are thereby categorized as ACPA-positive (ACPA+) or ACPA-negative (ACPA-), respectively. In this study, we aimed to elucidate a broader range of serological autoantibodies that could further explain immunological differences between patients with ACPA+ RA and ACPA- RA. On serum collected from adult patients with ACPA+ RA (n = 32), ACPA- RA (n = 30), and matched healthy controls (n = 30), we used a highly multiplex autoantibody profiling assay to screen for over 1600 IgG autoantibodies that target full-length, correctly folded, native human proteins.

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Objective: To assess trends in the incidence of heart failure (HF) in patients with incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from 1980 to 2009 and to compare different HF definitions in RA.

Methods: The study population comprised Olmsted County, Minnesota residents with incident RA (age ≥ 18 yrs, 1987 American College of Rheumatology criteria met in 1980-2009). All subjects were followed until death, migration, or April 30, 2019.

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In this report, we describe a case of septic arthritis caused by the newly described (formerly complex). The patient's only significant exposure was home gardening. To our knowledge, this represents the first documented case of infection in the United States and first septic arthritis.

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Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is an infl/ammatory cardiomyopathy that can present with mitral regurgitation (MR), but few studies describe the mechanisms and natural history of MR in CS. We queried an institutional registry of 512 patients with CS for moderate or greater MR at diagnosis. Baseline demographic and echocardiography (TTE) data were collected.

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