Rheumatology Malaysia

18/09/2025

28/08/2025

🧪 Physical examination can help differentiate shoulder from neck pathology although there can be overlap.

💪 Absence of biceps muscle stretch reflex is highly specific for cervical radiculopathy.

🔎 Spurling’s test has high specificity (0.93) for cervical radiculopathy.

✋ Shoulder abduction plays a key role in differentiation:

Davidson et al showed that 68% of patients with cervical radiculopathy had relief with abduction of the arm, which elevates the dorsal root ganglion away from osteophytes and varicosities causing compression.

📉 Viikari-Juntura et al showed that Spurling’s test and the shoulder abduction test were both specific for cervical radiculopathy but were not sensitive.

⚠️ Caliş et al showed that:

Shoulder abduction pain was highly specific for subacromial impingement

Drop arm test: specificity 0.97

Painful arc test: specificity 0.80

🤲 Gumina et al proposed the arm squeeze test:

Hypothesizes that compression of brachial plexus nerves affected by radiculopathy in the middle arm results in increased pain compared with various shoulder pathologies

Sensitivity 0.96 and specificity 0.90 for detection of cervical radiculopathy

👉Link to article in the comment

22/08/2025

📰NEWS ALERT!

EULAR has published new core dataset recommendations to standardise the care and research of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). These guidelines aim to improve clinical practice and enable big data–driven insights to advance treatment and patient outcomes.

📖Read the full here👉https://pulse.ly/kcvil49tym

10/07/2025

A new review discusses the features of oligoarticular, polyarticular, systemic, and psoriatic JIA and enthesitis-related arthritis, as well as advances in treatment for these conditions.

11/04/2025

The British Society for Rheumatology have today launched a revised version of their Axial Spondyloarthritis Guideline. The previous version was published in 2017 but, since then, more treatments have become available and more evidence has been published related to treatment options for axial SpA.

The guideline was developed by a group which included individuals with lived experience of axial SpA, rheumatologists, an ophthalmologist, a dermatologist, a gastroenterologist, a general practitioner, an epidemiologist, a specialist nurse, a consultant physiotherapist, a specialist pharmacist, and Dale Webb, CEO at NASS.

You can read more about the guideline and find links to resources on the NASS website: https://buff.ly/fSfP4aA

05/04/2025

22/03/2025