Without further ado, I'll introduce our first speaker for today,
Speaker:Associate Professor Fred Joshua.
Speaker:So he's a dedicated physician for the treatment of rheumatic diseases.
Speaker:He has expertise in rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis,
Speaker:and psoriatic arthritis, having completed a PhD in the use of ultrasound for
Speaker:rheumatoid arthritis and presenting research internationally in these areas.
Speaker:Associate Professor Joshua has pioneered Rheumatological ultrasound in Australia
Speaker:And developed a degree for rheumatologists Through the Australian Society for
Speaker:Ultrasound in Medicine Of which he is currently the President-elect,
Speaker:Associate Professor Joshua has been involved In teaching med students and junior
Speaker:doctors For many years, having previously been awarded The Prince of Wales Clinical
Speaker:School Teacher of the Year Which is a fantastic achievement,
Speaker:and he's now involved in developing undergrad medical programs at Macquarie
Speaker:University where he is the Associate Professor of Medicine and the Rheumatology
Speaker:Clinical Discipline Head. Fred, come up.
Speaker:Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity and particularly to Jodie. She was fantastic.
Speaker:I was perhaps not trying to be as helpful as I could have been in getting everything
Speaker:set up and she really helped me to do this.
Speaker:I have to echo the comments that were made about the orthopaedic group here. It's fantastic.
Speaker:And not just the hospital, because I go up to level five quite a bit to the ward.
Speaker:Clearly, I never go into the operating theater. You never want me in there.
Speaker:But they do a fantastic job, particularly after the surgery as well.
Speaker:So we have a great team of doctors in affiliated specialties to help if there are any issues.
Speaker:So I've just found it fantastic actually working here because most of my work
Speaker:had been in Ramwick and Cogger and I came here primarily for the university
Speaker:and then being part of the hospital has just been fantastic really.
Speaker:I am going to talk about now inflammatory diseases and how we can best assess them.
Speaker:And I've got a couple of cases and I'll go through some of how we think about
Speaker:it and how we can improve patient care through both recognition,
Speaker:management of the drugs and assessment.
Speaker:So I've been involved in clinical trials in the past as well as advisory groups
Speaker:and medical education for pretty much everyone and I don't do as much now as
Speaker:I'm primarily at the university but I have still done some medical education
Speaker:primarily with them now.
Speaker:So I've got two, this is the first case, and you'll recognize the first case
Speaker:is similar to the second case, okay, and there'll be a few little differences.
Speaker:So this is not an uncommon presentation. A 32-year-old young woman,
Speaker:painful hands for about three months, swell across her right and left hand,
Speaker:PIPs and MCPs, reducing her grip strength.
Speaker:Notice she's been more tired. So fatigue and systemic upset is really how we
Speaker:sort of differentiate these sort of problems.
Speaker:So we think inflammatory disease, not just swelling, I also feel tired,
Speaker:I feel a bit worn out, then considerable difficulty moving in the morning,
Speaker:and our feet have been more painful in the morning for the last six months.
Speaker:So often people will say, oh, I remember my feet were sore, but I changed shoes,
Speaker:I did all of these things, and it seemed to keep on happening.
Speaker:Then the swelling, but actually rheumatoid, in example, starts in the feet,
Speaker:and then you get the grip strength problems. and then the fatigue is part of
Speaker:that and an offer will proceed.
Speaker:Otherwise, well, married, no kids. Yeah.
Speaker:Okay. Oh, sorry. So you examine her.
Speaker:General examination is sort of normal. Tenderness and swelling across the MCPs
Speaker:and PIPs and MTPs. Got to take shoes off.
Speaker:What do you think the diagnosis is and what differentials? Thoughts?
Speaker:Good. So first up will be rheumatoid. What would be differentials?
Speaker:Psoriatic arthritis. Anything else?
Speaker:Lupus. And so these are the common things, right? So we would think rheumatoid one.
Speaker:We will think possibly spondyloarthritis. And I want you to think of spondyloarthritis
Speaker:rather than just psoriatic arthritis.
Speaker:And then lupus. So these are our criteria.
Speaker:So you're clearly well-versed. So this is how we think of it.
Speaker:So rheumatoid criteria. And if you have a look, it's one joint with clinically
Speaker:swollen or synovitis not better explained by another disease.
Speaker:And the reason we have that is you can also use ultrasound or other imaging
Speaker:techniques to prove that they have swollen joints.
Speaker:So we don't always have to be able to see it.
Speaker:Sometimes you can do another imaging technique. The imaging technique,
Speaker:my PhD is about ultrasound which is a method of trying to determine whether
Speaker:a joint's swollen or not, and an MRI can be done.
Speaker:Now, when you do the ultrasound, you must specify that you're looking for inflammatory
Speaker:arthritis because otherwise sometimes the radiologist won't be as well-versed.
Speaker:Colin Chong, who works at Macquarie here, is really good at it.
Speaker:He's pretty good at the imaging, so we ran a symposium with him.
Speaker:Then serology, if you can prove rheumatoid factor or CCP antibody,
Speaker:So rheumatoid factor will be positive in about 70% of patients.
Speaker:CCP antibody also will be positive in around that level, but it's much more specific CCP antibody.
Speaker:ESR and CRP, but have a look at this. This is important.
Speaker:You don't have to have ESR and CRP being elevated to have rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker:You do not have to have ESR and CRP being elevated.
Speaker:And then duration, early disease is six weeks.
Speaker:That's what we call early disease now. Now, psoriatic arthritis,
Speaker:and this is important in the classification, if you notice here in the story
Speaker:here, you do not have to have psoriasis yourself anymore.
Speaker:So the newer CASPAR criteria does not require you to have psoriasis yourself.
Speaker:You can have a family history and then you can think, okay, maybe this person
Speaker:has psoriatic arthritis based on that newer criteria.
Speaker:And you can have more specific features for psoriatic arthritis,
Speaker:which include dactylitis, sausage finger or toe, which does not happen so much in rheumatoid.
Speaker:So you can say, I think psoriatic arthritis based on that.
Speaker:And remember, the bigger group is spondyarthritis, back and joint diseases,
Speaker:which we subdivide, psoriasis-related arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis,
Speaker:reactive arthritis to an infection,
Speaker:such as chlamydia or gastrointestinal illness, and then related to IBD.
Speaker:So we've got that grouping, the subgroup is psoriatic arthritis.
Speaker:Now lupus, before you could have ANA negative lupus, you can no longer have that.
Speaker:By definition, you must have an ANA that's positive.
Speaker:And the reason that was happening is because other diseases need to be thought of.
Speaker:And there are newer ones such as IgG4 disease that may present like Sjogren's
Speaker:or lupus, but it's actually a different condition.
Speaker:So if the ANA is negative, by definition, they do not have lupus.
Speaker:They may still have an inflammatory joint disease, but it cannot be lupus.
Speaker:It might still be a connective tissue disease, so it could be something else in that pathway.
Speaker:So you might have a different one.
Speaker:Sjogren, sometimes the ANA is very rarely. Sometimes Sjogren is negative,
Speaker:but you've got to think about other conditions is the key.
Speaker:Okay, so in this scenario, we do blood testing and we come up with these tests.
Speaker:ESR and CRP are elevated.
Speaker:Rheumatoid factor, CCP, x-ray is nothing to see, which is extremely common.
Speaker:You will not see anything on x-ray and this is a disincentive for people to get treatment.
Speaker:So you've got to remember, please tell people just because your x-rays look
Speaker:good, it's a window to the past.
Speaker:X-rays are a window to the past.
Speaker:Newer imaging, MR ultrasound is a window to the future, then what would you
Speaker:do? What drugs do you reckon?
Speaker:What would you do? Any ideas, guys?
Speaker:Yeah, so you could do some anti-inflammatories DMARDS, the anti-inflammatories
Speaker:for pain, the disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs to try and prevent future
Speaker:harm, and sometimes we use prednisone.
Speaker:People say, well, I hate prednisone. I don't like it either. But you've got to work.
Speaker:You can't tell the rickshaw driver, go on a holiday. You're going to put food on the table, like me.
Speaker:You're going to put food on the table, yeah? And so if you need food on the
Speaker:table, you might take some prednisone in the short term to get through the problem.
Speaker:So prednisone, why? Reduces pain, joint tenderness, improves grip strength,
Speaker:better than anti-inflammatories.
Speaker:It can reduce joint damage. It can.
Speaker:So it's not like it's completely useless. It is actually a good drug.
Speaker:You just can't keep doing it.
Speaker:So once you've used it, do it. And when you're using it, I use 15. 1-5.
Speaker:1-5. not 5-0. 5-0 is called the police, but in the American movies,
Speaker:5-0 is that, but it's also asthma.
Speaker:So don't use the asthma protocols. Use the rheumatological ones, 15.
Speaker:Useful for flares. So you can say to people, use 15 for a couple of days,
Speaker:then drop it quickly every three days and get rid of it.
Speaker:You can use 50 if you have to, if it's really severe.
Speaker:So chronic use, no good. Short-term, not really an issue. Longer-term,
Speaker:all of those problems you already know.
Speaker:So, you know, longer-term, you don't want to use it. So this is not telling anyone to anything.
Speaker:You guys all know this. Weight gain, osteoporosis, diabetes, cataracts.
Speaker:When you're using prednisone for a while, more than three months at greater
Speaker:than 7.5 milligrams, that's when we start thinking about osteoporosis prophylaxis.
Speaker:So she comes back. She says to you, thank you so much for the anti-inflammatories,
Speaker:a short course of prednisone. I want to get onto disease-modifying drugs.
Speaker:What pre-screening do you do to check before? Because you could do methotrexate
Speaker:yourself if you wanted, if you feel comfortable.
Speaker:Of course we're here to help. But if you wanted to, you could.
Speaker:What would be the pre-screening and what medication would we choose?
Speaker:And that depends a lot on what we're doing.
Speaker:So pre-screening with hepatitis B, C serology and a chest x-ray.
Speaker:The reason the chest x-ray is important is if they've got lung disease,
Speaker:which some people will have, methotrexate can worsen that.
Speaker:So it's well worth doing the chest x-ray as well.
Speaker:Why do we do methotrexate? Reduces joint pain and swelling, reduces joint damage,
Speaker:reduces disability. And this is the bit people forget to say,
Speaker:you do not die as quickly.
Speaker:You do not die as quickly from rheumatoid. Rheumatoid should not be called rheumatoid arthritis,
Speaker:it should be called rheumatoid disease because it's a multi-system disease at
Speaker:an increased rate of mortality, but we call it arthritis, which makes it seem less serious. Yeah.
Speaker:If I said to you, you've got, and we know this with cancer.
Speaker:If you say someone's got a skin cancer or a pre-cancer, you get more treatment.
Speaker:The patient will beg you for more treatment.
Speaker:If I say you've got a benign lesion in your skin that might be developing to
Speaker:cancer one day, less treatment.
Speaker:So this is a misnomer. You start with 10 milligrams of methotrexate,
Speaker:increase each few weeks.
Speaker:You can go by 5 milligrams or even 10.
Speaker:Top dose, usually about 25. Folic acid, 10 milligrams, two tablets the next day.
Speaker:Blood tests every month to three months.
Speaker:What are you, this is a, you can use the Rheumatology Association leaflets to
Speaker:give to a patient to say, what do you got for a rheumatoid?
Speaker:What drugs can do? Go to the, there's a website there and this,
Speaker:it's got all of our drugs.
Speaker:You will know as much as me by the end of this, because you'll just know all
Speaker:the websites, yeah, and you just go to the website.
Speaker:Generally, I talk about, I tell people, I am not here to sell a drug.
Speaker:Bug, I'm here to sell you a solution, but it's not perfect.
Speaker:But if you do this, you will live longer. You will have less joint pain.
Speaker:You will have less disability.
Speaker:So it can cause hair loss. It can cause nausea. It can cause lymphopenia.
Speaker:Liver function tests can occur.
Speaker:Skin cancer risk, that's important.
Speaker:The longer you're on it, the increased rate of skin cancer. So you've got to have screening.
Speaker:Increase the folic acid if they get a bit of hair loss. You can also use minocyclin,
Speaker:spironolactone, all of those other things for female pattern baldness.
Speaker:Nausea usually gets better. Infections, you get an infection on methotrexate, stop the drug.
Speaker:Yep. If on prednisone you continue, but if you get an infection,
Speaker:stop methotrexate, restart once they're off antibiotics.
Speaker:You cannot get pregnant on it and you cannot breastfeed on it. Yep.
Speaker:You can father children on it.
Speaker:You can father children on it. Just the women who can't have it.
Speaker:Vaccinations. What do you do? Live vaccines? Out.
Speaker:Can't use live vaccines. That's the list of the live vaccines.
Speaker:Can have flu vax. Can have pneumonia vax. Can have shingrix. Should have shingrix.
Speaker:COVID-19 can have. Yep. If you want to get the best response,
Speaker:you miss the methotrexate for two weeks. Yep.
Speaker:So if you miss the methotrexate for two weeks, then give the vaccine,
Speaker:you get a better response.
Speaker:But you might not do it because they're really suffering. Remember the rickshaw
Speaker:driver. Got to work. Yep.
Speaker:Yeah, they can. Because you might say, well, I want to reduce your problems
Speaker:by using methotrexate, and your vaccine response might be slightly lower,
Speaker:but that's better than nothing.
Speaker:Otherwise, they flare, they hate the vaccination process. You make it easy.
Speaker:Progress. She comes back, she says, it worked for a while.
Speaker:The prednisone helped me with the flares. I want my disease under control because
Speaker:I'm supposed to be perfect.
Speaker:So more painful swollen joints, ESR and CRP rise, what's next? What do you think?
Speaker:We've already got methotrexate on board. Anything else? We've got heaps of stuff.
Speaker:We can move from methotrexate actually by a government.
Speaker:I've simplified things a little bit. But actually by a government,
Speaker:you've got to have a second drug for three months and then you can move to all
Speaker:of these different biologics targeting different parts of the immune cascade.
Speaker:We have TNF blockade, which we've got five different drugs.
Speaker:We've got CTLA-4, agonist, avatacet. We've got CD20 drugs, which target B cells.
Speaker:We have JAK inhibitors, which are not really a biologic.
Speaker:The reason we call these things biologics is we, it's a very royal we,
Speaker:it's not me, drug companies.
Speaker:Drug company produces these anti-cytokine therapies by infecting a virus into
Speaker:a bacteria that produces the antibody that we scoop up and inject.
Speaker:And that's then a JAK inhibitor. Sorry, IL-6 and those.
Speaker:JAK inhibitors are a targeted synthetic, so they're a tablet.
Speaker:Targeted synthetic, so they're slightly different. But under government,
Speaker:they fulfil the same sort of criteria to get them, but they are slightly different.
Speaker:So you can see everyone should be fixed. We've got a heap of drugs.
Speaker:This is where I was just going through the, oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes. Yes.
Speaker:But you wouldn't do that. You would say, this is too difficult.
Speaker:You would say, I'll send them along, because that's the complex person.
Speaker:The person that doesn't have that, who is straightforward, that's what you would
Speaker:do. The person that's more complicated, you say, that's the person that really
Speaker:needs someone else to help to make sure.
Speaker:It is brave, but you get proof.
Speaker:Yeah, it is brave. But where would my truth come? I get an MRI,
Speaker:show some swelling of joints, show joint destruction.
Speaker:Go for it. But it's brave. You've got to do stuff. People are suffering.
Speaker:So I get what you're saying. I don't like doing it, but I get some proof around it.
Speaker:It's consultants' fees beyond their reach. That's a hard part.
Speaker:That's the hospital part. I can't control that component.
Speaker:But it is difficult. That part is really difficult. And so that is where we
Speaker:need to have a health system that is better equipped. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:This is more like a, thank you, this is more like a criteria because of the
Speaker:PBS and money side. So if money was no object, Then, yeah. Would I go onto a
Speaker:biologics straight away? It's always careful what you wish for.
Speaker:Yeah, that's what I would like. Because sometimes these drugs can cause side effects too.
Speaker:So, you know, we have experience of methotrexate for people on it for 50 years.
Speaker:So it's a good drug. But if you get biologics faster, the chances of going into
Speaker:a drug-free remission at two years is 50%.
Speaker:But it means 50% at two years also relapse. So if we do it faster,
Speaker:there's the possibility, there's even thoughts of using rituximab and changing
Speaker:the course when people are pre-symptomatic.
Speaker:So there is changing scale of this.
Speaker:So it's possible as the drugs come down, we would use it faster.
Speaker:And if people have ultimate money, sometimes we do it faster.
Speaker:So we'll say, you know, you just pay for this and you can get it, but it's expensive.
Speaker:So ideally, that would be the choice. Generally, yes. If you have biologic plus
Speaker:drug faster, you do better. Thank you. Plus methotrexate.
Speaker:These are the practicalities of it. Other immune disorders with TNF blockade
Speaker:could occur. Like I could cause someone to get MS.
Speaker:I could cause someone to get lupus.
Speaker:It's great in pregnancy, however. It works in pregnancy.
Speaker:It increases the risk of skin cancers. And it's coming down in price.
Speaker:And you can switch medications and have effectiveness.
Speaker:These are like most of these are subcut, so just do a little pen, pop it in.
Speaker:These are the sort of common problems that you might face when people are on it.
Speaker:Injection sites, this is what you do. Ask people to rotate the injection site.
Speaker:Antihistamines may help. Cold packs can help. It does not relate to the drug working or not.
Speaker:It's a short-lived histamine reaction but those histamine reactions can be quite
Speaker:severe and we might have to change it but we just say, well,
Speaker:that was not good for you next.
Speaker:IL-6 blockade. So that was TNF blockade, right? So TNF blockade,
Speaker:MS-like syndromes, lupus-like syndromes can occur.
Speaker:Those are probably the biggest differentials. IL-6 blockade,
Speaker:weekly subcadding injection.
Speaker:It doesn't need methotrexate as much as TNF blockade does.
Speaker:IL-6 blockade, the major risk is shingles, neutropenia, diverticulitis, cholesterol.
Speaker:Remember, I'm not selling drug. I am selling solution.
Speaker:And remember, people die from the problem. People get disability.
Speaker:This stuff works, but it comes with risk. And we have to be ready for that.
Speaker:Those are the common risks. Does it increase heart attacks with the increase
Speaker:of hypercholesterolemia? No, it does not.
Speaker:So it doesn't increase heart attacks. The cholesterol goes up,
Speaker:but the heart attack rate does not. If you've got significant risk factors,
Speaker:you do need to worry about it.
Speaker:Oh, sorry That was me saying I should get a smiley face.
Speaker:So CTLA-4, this is arentia or abatacep.
Speaker:So this blocks co-stimulation of white cells to reduce rheumatoid.
Speaker:It again, it can be used IV, it can be used subcut.
Speaker:You have to use methotrexate with it. Without methotrexate, it's less effective.
Speaker:It again increases skin cancers. All of these drugs, all immunosuppression increases skin cancers.
Speaker:But it doesn't give you all those other issues I was telling you about. It's a pretty safe drug.
Speaker:So it doesn't cause the TNF type problems. It doesn't cause the neutropenia. Pretty safe drug.
Speaker:Rarely associated with, so if you look at rituximab, CD20, rarely associated
Speaker:with like a multifocal leukoencopathy.
Speaker:That's like mad cow disease.
Speaker:Exceedingly rare. Really, really rare. We got bad problem.
Speaker:This is useful, B cell depletion. Six monthly infusion.
Speaker:So yes they've got problems yeah but
Speaker:on average the problems are not so great
Speaker:and do not occur especially if you're
Speaker:young when you get older sure bad things
Speaker:can happen but you stop it and if you stop the if you stop the illness early
Speaker:you don't get all the other problems that used to happen okay jane says i've
Speaker:responded well to tnf blockade and i gave a tnf blockade because Jane has not
Speaker:had any children and she wants to have children.
Speaker:She feels, is there longer term risks, however, of having rheumatoid? Oh, I keep doing that.
Speaker:Oh, thank you. So, longer term, if your disease is active, you have less chance of falling pregnant.
Speaker:Yeah? Important.
Speaker:Pregnancy gets your arthritis better in 60% of people. Hypertension,
Speaker:preeclampsia increased.
Speaker:These are the people to contact to help with managing rheumatoid in pregnancy.
Speaker:You can contact Deborah Kennedy, yeah, and she will help the patient feel comfortable about taking drugs.
Speaker:These are some doctors in different areas of Sydney that help with obstetric medicine.
Speaker:Yeah, like I just get everyone on board to help.
Speaker:Yep, and you can look up on our Rheumatology Association what to tell people
Speaker:in pregnancy. But basically, get disease under control, use TNF blockade.
Speaker:Yep, that's basically it.
Speaker:Osteoporosis rheumatoid increases osteoporosis disease itself but increased
Speaker:medications especially prednisone increase the rate,
Speaker:biologics is superior to conventional medicines for bone health they've got
Speaker:to do strengthening and exercise that improves that have you heard of the Onero
Speaker:program so the Onero program is the only physiotherapy program that has clear
Speaker:proof of improving osteoporosis.
Speaker:And you can look up different places. It's spelled O-N-E-R-O,
Speaker:O-N-E-R-O Academy, and you can work out where those practitioners are.
Speaker:But it's an accredited program.
Speaker:This is important. Heart attacks and stroke are increased in people who have
Speaker:inflammatory disease, particularly rheumatoid.
Speaker:So people who have rheumatoid have more heart attacks. The more active your
Speaker:disease, the more likely you are to have a heart attack from it.
Speaker:Inflammatory disease increases cardiovascular mortality. So I send people for coronary screening.
Speaker:I say, go see the cardiologist and get it sorted or speak to your GP and ask
Speaker:them what we've got to do for cardiac screening.
Speaker:Stress test alone is not good enough because a lot of people are fit.
Speaker:So if you're fit and you go to a stress test, of course you pass.
Speaker:It's a functional test. It doesn't tell us what your heart vessels are like.
Speaker:It's additive to your traditional risk factors. So think of it as completely
Speaker:separate, just like you'd think of smoking as completely separate.
Speaker:Rheumatoid, risk factor of heart attacks and stroke.
Speaker:Malignancy, it is increased in people with rheumatoid, not just from the drugs.
Speaker:Everyone talks about the drugs, the drugs are going to give me cancer. No, it's the disease.
Speaker:The disease increases the rate, especially lymphoma. But one of the things we
Speaker:don't talk about is the lung cancer risk.
Speaker:Lung cancer is increased in people with rheumatoid.
Speaker:Got to check.
Speaker:Yep, got to check. And the lung cancer screening protocols are in flux,
Speaker:right? They're just changing now. Yep.
Speaker:How long has it taken for the respiratory physicians and cardiothoracic surgeons
Speaker:to go with the data? 15 years.
Speaker:The data came out in 2010 for low-dose CT.
Speaker:Yep, we've got to be ahead of that.
Speaker:So non-melanoma skin cancers. So melanoma, we don't have proof,
Speaker:but non-melanoma skin cancers.
Speaker:Okay that's rheumatoid now janelle
Speaker:so that was jane it's janelle bit of a play on
Speaker:words but this is the same sort of story 32 year old lady painful hands for
Speaker:three months the difference dip joints right fourth finger swollen reduced grip
Speaker:strength more tired for six months that's systemic upset,
Speaker:Difficulty moving in the morning Remembers her right ankle has been swollen
Speaker:Otherwise well Married with no children Family history of psoriasis She does not have psoriasis.
Speaker:You see how, you've got to ask. She's not going to come in and say,
Speaker:yes, my father's got psoriasis. You've got to ask.
Speaker:And then I look like a genius. Not really a genius, I'm just a hard worker.
Speaker:Yeah, but I ask a lot, talk a lot. You can see I talk a lot.
Speaker:When you do the tests, this time her inflammation markers are still elevated,
Speaker:but the only difference is the rheumatoid factor and CCP are negative.
Speaker:Same thing. Yeah. Yep. But when I showed you the story, they were asymmetric joints.
Speaker:Yep. In the rheumatoid case, it was more symmetrical. This is asymmetric joints.
Speaker:I think DIP involvement, that doesn't happen with rheumatoid.
Speaker:One finger, that doesn't happen with rheumatoid. The ankle swelling,
Speaker:why isn't it on the other side? Why isn't there some symmetry to this?
Speaker:But the other features are the same. Systemic upset. I feel tired.
Speaker:I feel worn out. I feel stiff.
Speaker:Are there other problems with comorbidities? There absolutely is, and this is important.
Speaker:Psoriasis is associated with all of these bits.
Speaker:Joints, skin, spinal pain, so sacralitis or even fusion of spine, inflammation of eye,
Speaker:tendonitis, which is really the join between tendon to bone,
Speaker:inflamed to the point where you can get a hole in your heel.
Speaker:Because the enthesis is eating away the bone.
Speaker:Dactylitis, sausage toe, sausage finger, nail changes. I've got this fungal
Speaker:infection that won't go.
Speaker:It's not fungal, it's psoriasis.
Speaker:IBD, or even just colitis indeterminate can occur.
Speaker:This is what you've got to think of when someone presents with psoriasis.
Speaker:But beyond that, look at this list. cholesterol,
Speaker:blood pressure, depression diabetes,
Speaker:obesity that is the metabolism and the mental health of someone with psoriasis
Speaker:so when I think of people with psoriasis I think of psoriasis and inflammatory
Speaker:disease in one component and all the different systems on the other component
Speaker:I think of the metabolic consequences,
Speaker:so I have dual goals Inflammatory disease, metabolic disease.
Speaker:No point having great joints if you die. Yeah.
Speaker:And they will die of the metabolic disease. That bit, you guys are fantastic at.
Speaker:Fantastic. Yeah. But sometimes people don't think of it because they're thinking
Speaker:of psoriasis as not a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.
Speaker:Just like with rheumatoid, not thinking of it as a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.
Speaker:Initial therapy, it's pretty similar. Use a bit of prednisone,
Speaker:get people out of problems.
Speaker:It doesn't work as well, and it's much more of an issue from the metabolic risk.
Speaker:The weight gain in diabetes, more common. Yeah.
Speaker:DMARTs, these are the ones we use. We talked about methotrexate already.
Speaker:For government restrictions, you use leflunamide, which is very similar,
Speaker:sulfasalazine. And then again, you go to biologics.
Speaker:You can use 2 grams twice a day in combination with methotrexate if you need.
Speaker:So she tried the methotrexate, didn't respond very well. She asks you,
Speaker:is there any newer therapies? Yeah.
Speaker:And you say, of course there is. Look at them all.
Speaker:TNF blockade. IL-1223 blockade. IL-23 blockade.
Speaker:IL-17 blockade. I made these slides one month ago.
Speaker:In that one month, there's a new IL-23 blocking drug, Skyrizy.
Speaker:JAK inhibitors, similar but different.
Speaker:So TNF, JAK inhibitors were in the same, both in rheumatoid as well.
Speaker:IL-12-23, IL-23 and IL-17 are specific for psoriasis and spondyloarthritis.
Speaker:Yep, so there is differences. And that's because those drugs seem to work on the enthesis more.
Speaker:Aisle 1223 and aisle 23, really safe.
Speaker:They work well for skin, joints, enthesus, bowel, spine a little bit.
Speaker:Very safe. The main problem is sinusitis.
Speaker:Aisle 1223 requires you to draw it up, whereas the aisle 23s,
Speaker:you just inject it again. Yep. Every two months.
Speaker:Skyrizi, the newest one, is every three months.
Speaker:Imagine that. Three months gets rid of your skin, joints, pain, feel better.
Speaker:Three-monthly injection, and all you're going to get a risk of is sinusitis.
Speaker:Realistically, it's just fantastic.
Speaker:IL-17, fantastic for skin.
Speaker:So if things are not working, skin disease, joints, and theses,
Speaker:spine, main side effect is fungal infection. That's real.
Speaker:Fungal infection is a problem. And it can make colitis unmask.
Speaker:So you can get colitis. So you've got to be a bit careful. So you might do a
Speaker:fecal calpropotectin before starting that.
Speaker:JAK inhibitors. These are tablets. They are tofacidinib, baracidinib,
Speaker:upadacidinib. Daily tablet.
Speaker:The major risks are similar to IL-6, herpes, zosterone, neutropenia,
Speaker:hypercholesterolemia.
Speaker:But this is the big thing.
Speaker:DVT pulmonary emboli are increased.
Speaker:Cardiovascular diseases increase. Yeah.
Speaker:So you've got to think about it. So I don't use them first line.
Speaker:I would use the others first.
Speaker:If you have, it's males and smokers that are the biggest risk for that,
Speaker:for getting this problem.
Speaker:But if you have uncontrolled disease, that's worse for your health from a cardiovascular
Speaker:perspective than the drug.
Speaker:She returns well and returns feeling when asked if there's any concern for the
Speaker:future with psoriatic arthritis this time.
Speaker:The comorbidities that we've touched upon, the metabolism, obesity,
Speaker:diabetes, cholesterol, a zempic and, you know, wagovi, munjaro,
Speaker:these are good for these people.
Speaker:That's the way to fix this. Get rid of the obesity and diabetes and metabolism improves.
Speaker:Takeaways, steroids, methotrexibologic, inflammatory arthritis is important
Speaker:diagnostic considerations. to suggest what treatment will work.
Speaker:Prednisone, conventional DMARDS can be used safely. So you guys could use those
Speaker:drugs if you feel comfortable.
Speaker:Don't do things you don't like. You know, if you don't like it, don't do it.
Speaker:Do what you like to do. Get comfortable and then ask. We're here to help you.
Speaker:I'm a bit busy, but of course I'll do my best.
Speaker:There are multiple biologics that can help improve symptoms,
Speaker:signs, and long-term harm from rheumatic disease.
Speaker:Integrated care makes a difference. You, me, subspecialists.
Speaker:Getting someone that can help
Speaker:the skin, getting someone that can help the gut, it's cost prohibitive.
Speaker:So we try and coordinate and I try and restrict how many times people come to see me.
Speaker:But best health is costly. And so, you know, but if you do, and you can say,
Speaker:okay, well, it's not as necessary because I've got this bit and it's all cost differential.
Speaker:But you've got to talk about it, give people options. These are the things you can think about.
Speaker:We have the hospitals, we have private health, we have all of these systems
Speaker:to try and help. But we must talk about it and try and make things better.
Speaker:Oh, this is my office. Don't worry about that so much. All right.
Speaker:Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity and the time. Thank you.