Background

Gender disparities in total knee arthroplasty utilization may be due to differences in perceptions and expectations about total knee arthroplasty outcomes. This study evaluates the impact of a decision aid on perceptions about total knee arthroplasty and decision-making parameters among patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Methods

Patients with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis viewed a video about knee osteoarthritis treatments options, including total knee arthroplasty, and received a personalized arthritis report. An adapted version of the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index was used to assess pain and physical function expectations following total knee arthroplasty before/after the intervention. These scores were compared to an age- and gender-adjusted means for a cohort of patients who had undergone total knee arthroplasty. Decision readiness and conflict were also measured.

Results

At baseline, both men and women had poorer expectations about post-operative pain and physical outcomes compared with observed outcomes of the comparator group. Following the intervention, women's mean age-adjusted expectations about post- total knee arthroplasty pain outcomes improved (Pre: 27.0; Post: 21.8 [p =0.08; 95% CI -0.7, 11.0]) and were closer to observed post-TKA outcomes; whereas men did not have a significant change in their pain expectations (Pre: 21.3; Post: 19.6 [p = 0.6; 95% CI -5.8, 9.4]). Women also demonstrated a significant improvement in decision readiness; whereas men did not. Both genders had less decision conflict after the intervention.

Conclusions

Both women and men with osteoarthritis had poor estimates of total knee arthroplasty outcomes. Women responded to the intervention with more accurate total knee arthroplasty outcome expectations and greater decision readiness. Improving patient knowledge of total knee arthroplasty through a decision aid may improve medical decision-making and reduce gender disparities in total knee arthroplasty utilization.

Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis characterized by painful disabling acute attacks. It is caused by hyperuricemia and deposition of urate crystals in and around the joints. Long-standing untreated hyperuricemia can lead to chronic arthritis with joint damage, tophi formation and urate nephropathy. Gout is associated with significant morbidity and health care associated cost. The goal of long-term therapy is to lower the serum urate level to promote dissolution of urate crystals, reduce recurrent acute gout flares, resolve tophi and prevent joint damage. Despite the presence of established gout treatment guidelines and effective medications to manage gout, patient outcomes are often poor. Etiology for these shortcomings is multifactorial including both physician and patient characteristics. Poor adherence to urate-lowering therapy (ULT) is prevalent and is a significant contributor to poor patient outcomes. This article reviews the treatment strategies for the management of hyperuricemia in chronic gout, gaps in quality of care in gout management, factors contributing to poor adherence to ULT and discusses potential interventions to achieve improved gout-related outcomes. These interventions include initiation of prophylactic anti-inflammatory medication when starting ULT, frequent follow-ups, regular serum urate monitoring and improved patient education, which can be achieved through pharmacist- or nurse-assisted programs. Interventions such as these could improve adherence to ULT and, ultimately, result in optimal gout-related outcomes.

Objective

The objective of this study was to understand patient perspectives to inform the voting process for the 2020 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) gout treatment guideline.

Methods

We conducted a panel meeting of eight patients with gout in Birmingham, Alabama. Patients were referred to the project by private and academic rheumatologists in the Birmingham area. All participants received orientation related to the guideline development process and evidence rating at the beginning of the meeting. With the help of a physician moderator, the patient panel reviewed nine key clinical scenarios and the supporting evidence and discussed their views and perspectives related to each. They also provided their preference for one of the two treatment options for each clinical scenario.

Results

The patient panel included eight men with gout. Of these eight participants, seven received their gout care from a rheumatologist and one from a primary care physician. Patients favored more active urate-lowering therapy (ULT) management and interventional management of gout flares to achieve desired clinical outcomes, resulting in unanimous consensus on choices related to six clinical scenarios: ULT initiation in gout, treat-to-target management strategy, use of pegloticase for refractory gout, starting ULT during a gout flare, using injectable treatments (over oral) for acute gout flares, and use of febuxostat in people with cardiovascular disease.

Conclusion

Knowledge of patient preferences and values is valuable and was influential for the development of the 2020 ACR gout treatment guideline.

Purpose of review

The present review addresses diagnostic methods for crystalline arthritis including synovial fluid analysis, ultrasound, and dual energy CT scan (DECT).

Recent findings

There are new technologies on the horizon to improve the ease, sensitivity, and specificity of synovial fluid analysis. Raman spectroscopy uses the spectral signature that results from a material's unique energy absorption and scatter for crystal identification. Lens-free microscopy directly images synovial fluid aspirate on to a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor chip, providing a high-resolution, wide field of view (∼20 mm) image. Raman spectroscopy and lens-free microscopy may provide additional benefit over compensated polarized light microscopy synovial fluid analysis by quantifying crystal density in synovial fluid samples. Ultrasound and DECT have good sensitivity and specificity for the identification of monosodium urate (MSU) and calcium pyrophosphate (CPP) crystals. However, both have limitations in patients with recent onset gout and low urate burdens.

Summary

New technologies promise improved methods for detection of MSU and CPP crystals. At this time, limitations of these technologies do not replace the need for synovial fluid aspiration for confirmation of crystal detection. None of these technologies address the often concomitant indication to rule out infectious arthritis.

Gout is a form of crystal arthropathy where monosodium urate (MSU) crystals deposit and elicit inflammation in a joint. Diagnosis of gout relies on identification of MSU crystals under a compensated polarized light microscope (CPLM) in synovial fluid aspirated from the patient's joint. The detection of MSU crystals by optical microscopy is enhanced by their birefringent properties. However, CPLM partially suffers from the high-cost and bulkiness of conventional lens-based microscopy, and its relatively small field-of-view (FOV) limits the efficiency and accuracy of gout diagnosis. Here we present a lens-free polarized microscope which adopts a novel differential and angle-mismatched polarizing optical design achieving wide-field and high-resolution holographic imaging of birefringent objects with a color contrast similar to that of a standard CPLM. The performance of this computational polarization microscope is validated by imaging MSU crystals made from a gout patient's tophus and steroid crystals used as negative control. This lens-free polarized microscope, with its wide FOV (>20 mm(2)), cost-effectiveness and field-portability, can significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of gout diagnosis, reduce costs, and can be deployed even at the point-of-care and in resource-limited clinical settings.

Pathological crystal identification is routinely practiced in rheumatology for diagnosing arthritis disease such as gout, and relies on polarized light microscopy as the gold standard method used by medical professionals. Here, we present a single-shot computational polarized light microscopy method that reconstructs the transmittance, retardance and slow-axis orientation of a birefringent sample using a single image captured with a pixelated-polarizer camera. This method is fast, simple-to-operate and compatible with all the existing standard microscopes without extensive or costly modifications. We demonstrated the success of our method by imaging three different types of crystals found in synovial fluid and reconstructed the birefringence information of these samples using a single image, without being affected by the orientation of individual crystals within the sample field-of-view. We believe this technique will provide improved sensitivity, specificity and speed, all at low cost, for clinical diagnosis of crystals found in synovial fluid and other bodily fluids.

Background

Beginning October 1, 1997, Medicare implemented a series of major changes to the Home Health (HH) reimbursement system. Reimbursements were first significantly reduced under the Interim Payment System (IPS) and then relaxed slightly until implementation of the HH Prospective Payment System (PPS) on October 1, 2000.

Objective

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of reimbursement policy on HH care utilization.

Research design

We postulated that in response to the initial changes, there would be reductions in both the probability of any HH use and the number of HH visits per HH user. Under PPS, we postulated there would be further reduction in number of HH visits. We tested whether the policy response differed by HH agency structure and whether subgroups of patients were differentially affected. An interrupted time-series analysis was conducted to examine month-to-month probability of HH selection and the number of HH visits among users.

Subjects

A 100% sample of all Medicare recipients undergoing either elective joint replacement (1.6 million hospital discharges) or surgical management of hip fracture (1.2 million hospital discharges) between January 1996 and December 2001 was selected.

Results

Under the IPS, the probability of any HH use and number of visits per episode of HH care fell until the IPS was refined in October 1998. With implementation of the PPS, HH visits fell commensurately. Differentially larger reductions in care were noted at for-profit HH agencies, for the elderly, women, patients receiving state assistance, and patients first discharged to skilled nursing facility or rehabilitation hospitals.

Conclusions

Changes in month-to-month utilization of HH services were sharp and well correlated with policy implementation dates, strengthening the evidence for a causal association between policy and patient care in the midst of a sea of concurrent policy changes. Greater reductions in HH visits were noted for vulnerable groups.

To describe the characteristics of calcium pyrophosphate (CPP) crystal size and morphology under compensated polarized light microscopy (CPLM). Secondarily, to describe CPP crystals seen only with digital enhancement of CPLM images, confirmed with advanced imaging techniques. Clinical lab-identified CPP-positive synovial fluid samples were collected from 16 joint aspirates. Four raters used a standardized protocol to describe crystal shape, birefringence strength and color. A crystal expert confirmed CPLM-visualized crystal identification. For crystal measurement, a high-pass linear light filter was used to enhance resolution and line discrimination of digital images. This process identified additional enhanced crystals not seen by raters under CPLM. Single-shot computational polarized light microscopy (SCPLM) provided further confirmation of the enhanced crystals' presence. Of 932 suspected crystals identified by CPLM, 569 met our inclusion criteria, and 293 (51%) were confirmed as CPP crystals. Of 175 unique confirmed crystals, 118 (67%) were rods (median area 3.6 μm2 [range, 1.0-22.9 μm2]), and 57 (33%) were rhomboids (median area 4.8 μm2 [range, 0.9-16.7 μm2]). Crystals visualized only after digital image enhancement were smaller and less birefringent than CPLM-identified crystals. CPP crystals that are smaller and weakly birefringent are more difficult to identify. There is likely a population of smaller, less birefringent CPP crystals that routinely goes undetected by CPLM. Describing the characteristics of poorly visible crystals may be of use for future development of novel crystal identification methods.

Objective

The aim of this study was to describe the adult rheumatology workforce in the United States, assess change in rheumatology providers over time, and identify variation in rheumatology practice characteristics.

Methods

Using national Medicare claims data from 2006 to 2020, clinically active rheumatology physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs) were identified. Each calendar year was used for inclusion, exclusion, and analysis, and providers were determined to be entering, exiting, or stable based upon presence or absence in the prior or subsequent years of data. Characteristics (age, gender, practice type, rural, and region) of rheumatologists were determined for 2019 and in mutually exclusive study periods from 2009 to 2011, 2012 to 2015, and 2016 to 2019. The location of rheumatology practice was determined by billing tax identification and mapped. Demographics of physicians exiting or entering the rheumatology workforce were compared separately to those stable by logistic regression.

Results

The clinically active adult rheumatology workforce identified in US Medicare in 2019 was 5,667 rheumatologists and 379 APPs. From 2009 to 2020, the number of rheumatologists increased 23% and the number of APPs increased 141%. There was an increase in female rheumatologists over time, rising to 43% in 2019. Women and those employed by a health care system were more likely to exit, and those in a small practice or in the South were less likely to exit.

Conclusion

The overall number of clinically active rheumatology providers grew more than 20% over the last decade to a high of 6,036 in 2020, although this rate of growth appears to be flattening off in later years.