Exercise therapy is the most widely used type of conservative treatment for low back pain. Systematic reviews have shown that exercise therapy is effective for chronic but not for acute…

Understanding prognosis is important in managing low back pain. In this article, we discuss the available evidence on low back pain prognosis and describe how prognostic evidence can be used…

Low back pain is a major cause of morbidity in high-, middle- and low-income countries, yet to date it has been relatively under-prioritised and under-funded. One important reason may be…

This issue of the journal aims to bring the busy clinician up to date with recent developments in key aspects of evaluation and management of non-specific low back pain, and…

While primary angiitis of the central system (PACNS) remains a rare entity, the poor specificity of the available diagnostic tests and its multiple mimics create a major diagnostic challenge. Recently,…

When confronted with a dermatomyositis or polymyositis patient not responding to immunosuppressive treatment, physicians must first ask whether the original diagnosis was correct. In this review, we provide a guide…

Systemic sclerosis has the highest case-specific mortality of any of the auto-immune rheumatic diseases, as well as causing major morbidity. It is a major clinical challenge and one that has…

The term ‘autoinflammatory disease’ encompasses an enlarging group of inflammatory disorders defined as Mendelian genetic diseases of the innate immune system. This group is growing considering the fact that diseases…

Ankylosing spondylitis is characterised by inflammation of the spine and the entheses followed by bone formation. Excessive bone formation in ankylosing spondylitis leads to the formation of bone spurs, such…

Most pregnancies in women with rheumatologic disease will result in the delivery of a healthy baby. Pregnancy can be particularly risky in women with active disease or on teratogenic medications,…