Treatment Patterns and Costs in Biologic DMARD-Naive Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Initiating Etanercept or Adalimumab with or Without Methotrexate.

Background: Etanercept (ETN) and adalimumab (ADA) are tumor necrosis factor inhibitors indicated for treatment of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and are used as monotherapy or in combination with conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) such as methotrexate (MTX). Data on treatment patterns and costs of ETN and ADA as monotherapies or in combination therapy with MTX are lacking in biologic DMARD (bDMARD)-naive patients with RA.

Objective: To evaluate treatment patterns and costs of ETN and ADA monotherapy and combination therapy in bDMARD-naive patients with RA.

Evaluation of the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System among men who have sex with men in Denver, Colorado.

Denver Public Health implements the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System (NHBS), a cyclical survey of populations at increased risk for HIV. We evaluated the implementation of NHBS among Denver men who have sex with men (MSM), considering the system's simplicity, data quality, representativeness, and sensitivity to trends. We found that the time required for implementation and the complexity of data management and analysis are barriers to disseminating local findings.

A case-control study of incident rheumatological conditions following acute gastroenteritis during military deployment.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the risk of incident rheumatological diagnoses (RD) associated with self-reported diarrhoea and vomiting during a first-time deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Such an association would provide evidence that RD in this population may include individuals with reactive arthritis (ReA) from deployment-related infectious gastroenteritis.

Design: This case-control epidemiological study used univariate and multivariate logistic regression to compare the odds of self-reported diarrhoea/vomiting among deployed US military personnel with incident RD to the odds of diarrhoea/vomiting among a control population.