Exciting episode this week!  This is the FIRST of a new podcast series entitled Rheum4Debate, an Oxford style debate show for the field of rheumatology.  We are planning to release one episode a month; each have a moderator and one physician on each side of a controversial motion.  Be sure to VOTE on whether you agree or disagree with the motion AFTER you have listened to the podcast! Get the episode at ebrheum.com!

This week a nice case control study out of Mayo challenged my own bias against MTX in GCA.  This prompted a deep dive into the literature, including 3 RCTs and meta analysis.  At the end of the day, I'm more (almost) fully convinced that MTX offers a (mediocre) benefit. 

Follow me on twitter (@ebrheum) to share your thoughts and find all of the PDFs at my Box on ebrheum.com. 

The FDA recently approved romosozumab for high risk post menopausal osteoporosis, but gave it a black box warning for cardiovascular disease.  This week I'll cover the data that led to it's approval despite such dire warnings.  

Get the papers themselves here and be sure to follow the podcast on twitter @ebrheum or sign up with your favorite podcast aggregator at ebrheum.com

This week I pair the recently published TRACE-RA trial assessing the efficacy of atorvastatin in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. It offered a great opportunity to also go after the recent Nature publication "Scientists rise up against statistical significance," which has (inexplicably) gotten so much high praise.  

Subscribe to the podcast / my twitter feed and find the papers at ebrheum.com!

This week I discuss the phase 2 trial on baricitinib in SLE.  Though it's early times (and the total flop of rituxan in ME/CFS recently can attest to this), this was a large phase 2 and I'm hopeful it carries through to the ongoing phase 3 trials.  Follow me on twitter and find all the papers / links at my new landing page, ebrheum.com!

#RheumJC week!  I hope you all tuned into the online journal club #RheumJC, but if you did not I put up a podcast about the paper we discussed. Yet another epidemiological misadventure into unmeasured confounding and in this case confounding by indication.  Take home... maybe consider not using Tramadol, as you already should have not been doing? 

Article I reference in the podcast: https://emcrit.org/toxhound/tramadont/

All the papers! https://tinyurl.com/yyll5qof

Follow me @EBRheum. 

In this week's episode I depart briefly from discussing papers in the rheumatology literature to dive headfirst into the recent controversy over eggs and cardiovascular disease. Our patients eat eggs too, so I figured it would still be applicable. Please join the conversation @EBRheum! Find all the papers here: https://tinyurl.com/yyll5qof

This week I'll tackle an interesting topic in giant cell vasculitis - the utility of FDG PET. This was a good paper but one that I used to discuss important concepts, including negative predictive value and pretest probability.  Hope you enjoy!  Please give feedback @EBRheum! Find all the papers here: https://tinyurl.com/yyll5qof

Finally addressing this ultrasound business.  I decided to cover two somewhat similar trials, which seem to come to the same conclusions regarding U/S and treat to target strategies.  However, the question addressed was narrow and the role of ultrasound remains to be determined.  Get this paper (and all the others) here: https://tinyurl.com/yyll5qof

This week we tackle two RCTs and try to figure out what to do with etanercept, methotrexate, and placebo (or the lack thereof).  Good opportunity for jumping into more PsA trials in the near future - lots of IL-somethings to talk about!  Remember to follow the podcast @EBRheum to give feedback and for updates!