Urinary tract infections in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Co-morbidity from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently focussed on outcomes of cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, but serious infections are an increasingly well-recognised complication of RA. Recent work has demonstrated how the incidence of pneumonia can be reduced in RA, but little attention has been paid to the incidence of urinary tract infection (UTI) in RA or to the associated co-morbidity. The aim of this study was to describe the incidence of UTI leading to hospitalisation in a large cohort of patients with RA and investigate which factors contributed to this.

Anaemia in rheumatoid arthritis: can we afford to ignore it?

INTRODUCTION Anaemia is common in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Clinicians may focus on rheumatological issues and assume anaemia of chronic disease (ACD). This study challenged this assumption and investigated the causes of anaemia in a large cohort of RA patients to assess its implications.

Pneumococcal antibody levels after pneumovax in patients with rheumatoid arthritis on methotrexate.

Introduction: Immunisation against pneumococcus has been shown to reduce pneumonia in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). There is concern that methotrexate may reduce its efficacy. There are very few objective data on the effect of methotrexate on the efficacy of pneumococcal vaccination with pneumovax, and no objective evidence on whether revaccination is necessary in RA patients on methotrexate.

Hearing improvement in a patient with variant Muckle-Wells syndrome in response to interleukin 1 receptor antagonism.

Background: Muckle-Wells syndrome (MWS), familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome, and neonatal onset multisystem inflammatory disease, also called chronic, infantile, neurological, cutaneous, and articular syndrome, are three hereditary autoinflammatory syndromes caused by mutations affecting the CIAS1/NALP3 gene on chromosome 1q44. The proinflammatory cytokine, interleukin 1beta, is believed to have a fundamental role in their pathogenesis.

Case Report: The case is described of a 59 year old white woman who presented with increasingly severe MWS-type features over a 15 year period.