Life-Threatening Bronchospasm.

While Eosinophilic Asthma is frequently underdiagnosed, COPD is often misdiagnosed. This case focusses on a COPD misdiagnosis that had life-threatening consequences. The patient was a 59-year-old, male smoker, who presented to the Emergency Department with a week's history of increasing shortness of breath.

Long-term outcomes of daily oral vs. pulsed intravenous cyclophosphamide in a non-trial setting in ANCA-associated vasculitis.

We aimed to compare risk of death, relapse, neutropenia and infection requiring hospital admission between unselected ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) patients according to whether cyclophosphamide induction was by daily oral (PO) or pulse intravenous (IV) route. We identified all newly diagnosed AAV patients treated with PO or IV cyclophosphamide between March 2007 and June 2013. We used Cox and logistic regression models to compare mortality, relapse and adverse events and adjusted these for age, renal function and other significant confounders.

First validation of the gout activity score against gout impact scale in a primary care based gout cohort.

Objectives: To validate the gout activity score (GAS) against the gout impact scale in a primary care based gout cohort.

Methods: This was a single-centre cross-sectional study. People with gout who participated in previous research at academic rheumatology, University of Nottingham, UK, and consented for participation in future studies were mailed a questionnaire in September 2015.

Long-term persistence and adherence on urate-lowering treatment can be maintained in primary care-5-year follow-up of a proof-of-concept study.

Objectives: To evaluate the persistence and adherence on urate-lowering treatment (ULT) in primary care 5 years after an initial nurse-led treatment of gout.

Methods: One hundred gout patients initiated on up-titrated ULT between March and July 2010 were sent a questionnaire that elicited information on current ULT, reasons for discontinuation of ULT if applicable, medication adherence and generic and disease-specific quality-of-life measures in 2015. They were invited for one visit at which height and weight were measured and blood was collected for serum uric acid measurement.

Does the initiation of urate-lowering treatment during an acute gout attack prolong the current episode and precipitate recurrent attacks: a systematic literature review.

The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on effect of initiating urate-lowering treatment (ULT) during an acute attack of gout on duration of index attack and persistence on ULT. OVID (Medline), EMBASE and AMED were searched to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of ULT initiation during acute gout attack published in English language. Two reviewers appraised the study quality and extracted data independently.