Dear All,

Greetings of the day!

Highlight of this issue is new diagnostic method for gout. Bongartz T and his team presented their work in June issue of annals of rheumatic disease discussing dual energy CT for the diagnosis of gout. The authors concluded that DECT can provide important diagnostic information when the polarizing microscopy of synovial fluid fails to confirm the presence of monosodium urate crystals. In this study, the overall sensitivity and specificity of DECT for diagnosing gout was 0.90 and 0.83 respectively. Two important subsets of gout have limited sensitivity and specificity with DECT: patients with acute first attack of gout and patients with knee OA whom superimposed gout is suspected , so careful patient selection is important.

Looking at patients in our very busy OPDs it is not possible that a question or two or many more do not arise in our minds in such a fascinating branch as ours – especially the student community – please post your questions to us – you can either email to  iraenewsleter@hotmail.com OR you can write to anyone in the editorial team. We will put these up for our experts to answer. That a question shall not go unanswered is a guarantee.

The newsletter needs improvement and value addition so you not only want to read it but FEEL THE NEED to read it. Suggestions are welcome from juniors and seniors – for there are none – in science !

We look forward to more interaction.

Regards,

Banwari Sharma
Editor, IRA e-Newsletter