Low-dose once weekly methotrexate (MTX) is the first-line disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) to treat rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Although methotrexate is generally considered to have a good safety profile it can occasionally induce severe side effects such as pancytopenia, mucositis, disorders of kidney and liver. Oral mucositis should alert physicians to MTX toxicity. We report a 64-year-old woman with a severe drug reaction including disseminated shingles, oral mucositis and pancytopenia only three days after starting a therapeutic low-dose of MTX. Initially, mucositis and myelosuppression couldn't be accounted for by the underlying disease. In taking the patient's history, MTX intake 10 days ago was missed, the patient reporting only current medications. However, there was more to the skin rash than meets the eye. Only after further inquiry did the patient reveal the intake of 2 doses of MTX and the subsequent withdrawal of medication. Arriving at the correct diagnosis in difficult cases, as in the case presented, requires further evaluation, including repeat history taking and eliciting more details if diagnosis remains elusive.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/folmed-2018-0046 | DOI Listing |
JAMA Netw Open
December 2024
Department of Epidemiology and Health Care Atlas, Central Research Institute of Ambulatory Health Care, Berlin, Germany.
Importance: A growing body of literature suggests the presence of a prodromal period with nonspecific signs and symptoms before onset of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objective: To systematically assess diseases and symptoms diagnosed in the 5 years before a first MS- or central nervous system (CNS) demyelinating disease-related diagnostic code in pediatric patients compared with controls without MS and controls with another immune-mediated disorder, juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).
Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based, matched case-control study included children and adolescents (aged <18 years) in Germany with statutory health insurance from January 2010 to December 2020.
Anal Chem
December 2024
Key Laboratory of Water Security and Water Environment Protection in Plateau Intersection (NWNU), Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730070, China.
The surge of lateral flow immunoassays (LFAs) stimulates researchers to explore the novel vibrant aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen)-doped nanoparticles to improve the accuracy and reliability of LFAs. However, the loading amount of AIEgens currently used for the LFA in microspheres is limited due to their symmetrical large conjugated skeleton structure, which significantly reduces the fluorescence brightness of the signal reporter in the LFA. Herein, an ionic AIEgens with a donor-acceptor type was developed as the signal reporter of the LFA for C-reactive protein (CRP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Ophthalmol
December 2024
Alcon Vision LLC, Fort Worth, TX, USA.
Purpose: To compare the refractive prediction accuracy of the Optiwave Refractive Analysis (ORA) SYSTEM with the Barrett True-K (BTK) formula in calculating intraocular lens (IOL) power in eyes that underwent cataract surgery after previous myopic photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) or laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK).
Methods: This retrospective study evaluated patients aged ≥22 years with prior myopic PRK or LASIK who underwent unilateral or bilateral cataract removal and monofocal IOL implantation using the ORA SYSTEM at 177 sites in the United States. Two datasets were analyzed: All Eyes (ie, all eligible eyes) and First Surgery Eyes (ie, each patient's first implanted eye).
Eye (Lond)
December 2024
Department of Ophthalmology, Sunderland Eye Infirmary, South Tyneside & Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, Sunderland, UK.
Objectives: The 36-month XTEND (NCT03939767) multicentre, observational, prospective study examined the effectiveness of proactive treatment regimens of intravitreal aflibercept (IVT-AFL) 2 mg in treatment-naïve patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) in routine clinical practice. The 12- and 24-month outcomes from the XTEND UK cohort are reported.
Methods: Patients aged ≥50 years with nAMD planned to receive IVT-AFL 2 mg were eligible.
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