Greetings! For our second session of #RheumJC for the year on Thursday, February 25, 2016, we will be discussing a recent article from the journal Neurology which may offer insights into the pathophysiology of giant cell arteritis titled “Prevalence and distribution of VZV in temporal arteries of patients with giant cell arteritis” by Gilden, D. et al.

We will again have two one-hour sessions at 9pm GMT (4pm EST) and 3am GMT (10pm EST).

We greatly thank the editors of the journal Neurology, who have agreed to make the article open-access from February 18 through February 25, 2016 using this link: http://www.neurology.org/content/84/19/1948.short?sid=82de0570-ac50–41e6–998b–6e72904f7bd8

We’re also extremely pleased that author Dr. Maria A. Nagel has agreed to join the #RheumJC discussions to answer any questions you may have regarding the article.

If you are new to using Twitter, take a look at our Intro to Twitter page.

If you are participating in a Twitter journal club chat for the first time, please read our Getting Started Guide to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down. Some additional pointers:

1. Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible.
2. Be polite and courteous.
3. Do not violate HIPAA.

As always, we welcome suggestions for future articles for discussion. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC or email us at rheumjc@gmail.com.

Happy New Year 2016!

To kick off the year, we are very excited to announce the next #RheumJC on Thursday January 28, 2016. The article chosen for this first 2016 RheumJC is “Response to belimumab among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus in clinical practice settings: 24-month results from the OBSErve study in the USA” by C. Collins, et al. It is published online by Lupus and is in open access: [CLICK HERE for open access article].

The first author of the article is our very own Christopher Collins known on twitter as @rheumpearls [CLICK HERE for profile]. He will be available during our usual two one-hour sessions at 9pm GMT (4pm EST) and 3am GMT (10pm EST) to answer all our questions.

This year’s RheumJC will be held every last Thursday of the month. We are also introducing some post session questions to consolidate the participants’ understanding on the subject. We encourage your participation and comments regarding these questions.

If you are new to using Twitter, take a look at our Intro to Twitter page.

If you are participating in a Twitter journal club chat for the first time, please read our Getting Started Guide to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down. Some additional pointers:

1. Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible.

2. Be polite and courteous.

3. Do not violate HIPAA.

As always, we welcome suggestions for future articles for discussion. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC or email us at rheumjc@gmail.com.

The next session of #RheumJC will be Thursday, December 10. We’ll be discussing three of your favorite abstracts from the 2015 ACR Annual Meeting based on your votes from our recent Twitter poll.

We will again run two one-hour “live chats” so as many people as possible can participate:

• Session 1: 9pm GMT (4pm ET)
• Session 2: 3am GMT (10pm ET)

ABSTRACT NUMBER: 505
Comparative Effectiveness and Time to Response Among Abatacept, Adalimumab, Certolizumab, Etanercept, Infliximab, Rituximab and Tocilizumab in a Real World Routine Care Registry

ABSTRACT NUMBER: 1075
The Scleroderma Lung Study II (SLS II) Shows That Both Oral Cyclophosphamide (CYC) and Mycophenolate Mofitil (MMF) Are Efficacious in Treating Progressive Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc)

ABSTRACT NUMBER: 3223
Anifrolumab, an Anti-Interferon Alpha Receptor Monoclonal Antibody, in Moderate to Severe Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)

If you are new to using Twitter, take a look at our Intro to Twitter page.

If you are participating in a Twitter journal club chat for the first time, please read our Getting Started Guide to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down. Some additional pointers:

1. Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible.
2. Be polite and courteous.
3. Do not violate HIPAA.

As always, we welcome suggestions for future articles for discussion. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC or email us at rheumjc@gmail.com.

Also, if you’re interested in helping with #RheumJC over the next year, check our our post Expanding the #RheumJC Team.

Some analysis for round 5 of #RheumJC

Overall (full 24hrs including both sessions) there were 27 total participants
– 14 people had participated in one of the four previous journal clubs
– 13 people were brand new
– 11 different countries were represented

For the full 24 hours, there were 336 total tweets – 287 unique tweets and 49 RTs

Session 1 (4pm EST)
– 17 participants (4 Europe, 11 Americas, 1 Africa, 1 SE Asia)
– 3 people participated again in session 2 (10pm EST)
– There were 175 total tweets –146 unique tweets and 29 RTs

Session 2 (10pm EST)
– 13 participants (12 Americas, 1 New Zeland)
– There were 161 total tweets – 141 unique tweets and 20 RTs

We’ve taken a short break, but we are back and happy to announce the next session of #RheumJC which will occur on Thursday, July 23rd. This rounds article is again a hot topic in rheumatology…biosimilars. The manuscript is published “online first”, July 6th 2015 by The Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and is titled “A phase III randomised, double-blind, parallel-group study comparing SB4 with etanercept reference product in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis despite methotrexate therapy” by Paul Emery, et al.

The article is open access and can be found at: http://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2015/07/06/annrheumdis–2015–207588.abstract

The session will again be run with two one-hour “live chats”, and this time we are making an effort not to conflict with #meded chats which also occurs on Thursday nights.

Session one of #RheumJC will occur at 7pm GMT (3pm EDT) (immediately prior to #meded chat number 1) and the second at 2am GMT (10pm EDT) (immediately after #meded number 2).

If you are new to using Twitter, take a look at our Intro to Twitter page.

If you are participating in a Twitter journal club chat for the first time, please read our Getting Started Guide to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down.

Some additional pointers:

1. Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible.

2. Be polite and courteous.

3. Do not violate HIPAA.

As always, we welcome suggestions for future articles for discussion. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC or email us at rheumjc@gmail.com.

Some analysis for round 4 of #RheumJC

Overall (full 24hrs including both sessions) there were 29 total participants

• 21 people had participated in one of the three previous journal clubs
  • For 6, this was their second journal club
  • For 7, this was their third journal club
  • For 8, this was their fourth journal club
• 8 people were brand new
• 10 different countries were represented

For the full 24 hours, there were 393 total tweets – 354 unique tweets and 39 RTs

Session 1 (4pm EST)

• 13 participants (3 Europe, 9 Americas, 1 Australia)
• 2 people participated again in session 2 (10pm EST)
• There were 129 total tweets –123 unique tweets and 6 RTs

Session 2 (10pm EST)

• 15 participants (14 Americas, 1 Australia)
• There were 224 total tweets – 195 unique tweets and 29 RTs

Symplur metrics from session 1

Symplur metrics from session 2

The next session of #RheumJC will be on Thursday, May 7th, and we’re pleased to announce we’ll be discussing an article covering a hot topic these days in rheumatology… the ability to lower or discontinue biologics in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The article is published in the April 9th, 2015 edition of The British Medical Journal and is titled “Disease activity guided dose reduction and withdrawal of adalimumab or etanercept compared with usual care in rheumatoid arthritis: open label, randomised controlled, non-inferiority trial” by Noortje van Herwaarden, et al.

The article is open access and can be found at: http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h1389–0

The session will again be run with two one-hour “live chats”, however with the difference between EST and GMT shortening to 4 hours due to daylight savings in the US, the first “live chat” will be at 8pm GMT (4pm EST) and the second at 2am GMT (10pm EST).

If you are new to using Twitter, take a look at our Intro to Twitter page.

If you are participating in a Twitter journal club chat for the first time, please read our Getting Started Guide to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down. Some additional pointers:

1. Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible.
2. Be polite and courteous.
3. Do not violate HIPAA.

As always, we welcome suggestions for future articles for discussion. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC or email us at rheumjc@gmail.com.

Another huge thank you to @RheumatologyNet for the summary of our 3rd #RheumJC. If you’re not following them on Twitter or online at http://www.rheumatologynetwork.com/, you’re missing out on a great source of rheumatology news and informaiton.

Rheumatology Network:

Twitter Rheumatology Journal Club #3: Autoimmunity and Pregnancy