美国风湿病学院（ACR）2013年会议是研究或提供风湿病护理和服务的任何人的必不可少的活动，BMC肌肉骨骼疾病was lucky enough to attend.圣地亚哥刺激你的美丽的设置sands of rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals from around the world to discuss the latest science, research and treatment in rheumatology.

会议涵盖了从基础研究到临床实践和重症监护的风湿病学的各个方面，但是很明显，类风湿关节炎的治疗选择是主要主题。开发和营销类风湿关节炎的新疗法只是改善治疗和结果的第一步。以最合适和有效的方式使用新的治疗剂作为关键步骤。维也纳医科大学的丹尼尔·阿雷萨（Daniel Aletha）说：“风湿病学家每年都习惯了新药。现在，如何最好地使用它们的问题变得越来越重要”。

Combinations, debates and connections

Combination therapy was another hot topic that can lead to confusion. Clinicians are familiar with traditional agents such as甲氨蝶呤和with newer biologic agents, includingadalimumab, a TNF inhibitor. Combining the two therapeutic classes offers synergistic activity that can be more effective than either agent on its own, but the question raised at ACR was: what doses of methotrexate is most effective? The协奏曲审判，将不同固定剂量的甲氨蝶呤与Adalimumab进行比较，似乎提供了一些初始答案。Aletha说，最终的结果是，与使用单一疗法中使用甲氨蝶呤相比，与TNF抑制剂相比，需要与TNF抑制剂结合使用甲氨蝶呤的一半。

Following these points, an intriguing debate pitted conventional rheumatoid arthritis therapy against biologics. So, which is the better treatment choice? James O’Dell from University of Nebraska argued that combination therapy provides clinical outcomes that equal anything biologic agents can produce, and that there are clearly patients who do better on biologic therapy than on conventional agents. On the other side, Ronald van Vollenhoven from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm countered that biologics are more effective than conventional therapy and they are more effective when used in combination with methotrexate. Comparison of biologics and conventional therapy in Norway and Finland found the two provided similar outcomes, but biologics cost roughly twice as much as conventional therapy, O’Dell said. According to van Vollenhoven, cost of treatment is a valid concern, but all things being equal, biologics are the most effective agents available for rheumatoid arthritis today. At the end of this fascinating debate, both participants agreed that there is no answer to the original question that would cover all scenarios.

讨论了肥胖与风湿性疾病（例如骨关节炎，类风湿关节炎和狼疮）之间的复杂联系，哈佛医学院的副教授玛丽安·汉南（Marian Hannan）提供了有关每种疾病如何影响彼此的最新理解。许多正在进行的研究正在试图解释这种相互关系的机制。尽管尚未产生令人满意的解释，但研究人员开始了解，风湿病患者服用的不仅仅是影响其身体成分的药物。它也可能是影响疾病的潜在炎症途径，影响脂肪渗透肌肉。肥胖的人们需要专注于健康饮食并更加活跃的久经考验的信息继续是重要的一点，但这是一个复杂的情况，可能还有其他干预措施会影响我们刚刚开始学习的身体成分关于，汉南得出结论。

发行商如何帮助？

According to editors of the ACR’s two journals (关节炎护理与研究和Arthritis & Rheumatism），好的评论者成为好作者。更重要的是，一位出色的手稿审阅者不仅有助于提高ACR期刊上发表的文章的质量，而且审阅者还改善了在此过程中的手稿写作。在这个有趣的会议中，来自关节炎护理与研究和Arthritis & Rheumatism, Marian Hannan and Joan Bathon respectively, provided tips and key points for conducting excellent research manuscript reviews and, in turn, help authors produce better manuscripts for peer review.

The 21^stcentury approach to reviewing research papers differs from the 20^th汉南说，这个世纪的方法是审稿人更重要的是，对提交给期刊的手稿内容的评论更有帮助。现代评论还应纳入21中可用的新技术^st她补充说，世纪。不仅用于访问信息作者以电子方式发送的技术，还可以通过新的统计和实验室技术来发送：“作者需要纳入这些新技术，并使它们对一般读者群可以理解，并在必要时教育读者有关这些新技术的教育”。

本届会议的目的是完善和提高研究人员在医学期刊审查医学期刊方面的技能，并通过查看如何审查文章来帮助潜在的作者改善手稿。能BMCMusculoskeletal Disordersbe of help? Well, all of our reviewers comments are freely available to read from each published article’s “pre-publication history”, so if you are curious to know how other researchers critique manuscripts, that might be a good place to start.