Rheumatoid Arthritis by the Guidelines: Best Practices in Treatment Selection and Disease Monitoring

Dr Jeffrey Curtis is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr Curtis received a Medical Degree (MD) and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. He subsequently completed a residency in internal medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a fellowship in rheumatology at UAB. He completed graduate work in informatics at Stanford University and is board certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Clinical Informatics. He received his Master of Science (MS) degree in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. 

Dr Curtis currently holds the William J. Koopman Endowed Professorship in Rheumatology and Immunology at UAB. He is the Co-Director of the UAB Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) of Musculoskeletal Disorders, which has a major emphasis on evaluating the safety and comparative effectiveness of medications for rheumatic diseases. Additionally, as the Director of the UAB Arthritis Clinical Intervention Program, he leads the clinical trials unit for the rheumatology division at UAB, with a particular focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). He is the Co-Director of the UAB Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics Research (PEER) Unit. PEER uses multiple large data sources to study comparative effectiveness questions across multiple chronic diseases. These data sources include national administrative data from Medicare and commercial health plans, electronic health record data, and large registries. In 2012, he was awarded the Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and was accepted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2016.

The evaluation of the efficacy, comparative effectiveness, and safety of the medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis are among Dr Curtis's research interests. He served on the Core Expert Panel for the ACR's 2008, 2012, and 2015 Recommendations for the Use of Non-Biologic and Biologic Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs in RA. He was the Deputy Director for a collaborative project between the FDA, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and a number of academic centers studying the safety of biologic agents using multiple, pooled national data sources. He is the Co-PI of the PCORI-funded Patient Powered Research Network "Arthritis-Power" registry, focused on RA, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis. He also leads the multi-center NIH-funded large pragmatic randomized controlled trial "VERVE," studying the safety and effectiveness of the live herpes zoster vaccine in patients receiving biologic agents. He is a member of the Center for Disease Control(CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Herpes Zoster workgroup. In 2015, he was appointed as a member to the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee.

Dr Curtis also studies risk factors for and outcomes of osteoporosis. He was a member of the ACR's task force to update recommendations for the management of glucocorticoid induced osteoporosis (GIOP). He served on the ASBMR Task Force on Atypical Subtrochanteric and Diaphyseal Fractures. 

Dr Curtis is a member of the American College of Rheumatology, the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research. He has been on the editorial board for Arthritis & Rheumatism, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, and Arthritis Care & Research. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, review articles, and book chapters.

Martin Jan Bergman, MD, FACR, FACP, FCPP, is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the Drexel University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. He is also a full-time clinical rheumatologist in a private practice setting, with over 25 years of clinical experience.

In addition to issues affecting the running of a successful clinical practice, Dr Bergman is interested in issues facing practicing rheumatologists on a daily basis. With collaborators, Dr Bergman has played a pivotal role in the development of patient management tools, particularly the RAPID 3. This disease measurement tool is now an outcomes measure accepted by the American College of Rheumatology and used worldwide.

Dr Bergman is a recognized leader in the field of clinical and patient reported outcomes, and has spoken both nationally and internationally on this and other topics. For his work, he has received the Joseph L Hollander Award for Excellence and Achievement in Rheumatology by the SE PA Arthritis Foundation and has been elected as a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Dr Iris Navarro-Millán is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Division of General Internal Medicine at Weill Cormell Medicine and the Division of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr Navarro-Millán received a Medical Degree (MD) from Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, and a Master in Science of Public Health (MSPH) degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in Birmingham, Alabama. She subsequently completed a residency in internal medicine at Physicians Carraway Medical Center and Baptist Health System in Birmingham and a fellowship in rheumatology at UAB. She is board certified in both rheumatology and internal medicine. 

Dr Navarro-Millán research focuses on factors that influence outcomes, particularly cardiovascular (CV) disease among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). She is developing, testing, and implementing behavioral patient-centered interventions to reduce pain and cardiovascular risk in RA patients. This includes the use of peer-coaches and community-based participatory research as a way of dissemination and implementing newly developed interventions. These interventions that aim to address and improve modifiable CV risk factors among patients with RA are applicable to other forms of inflammatory arthritis with high CV burden such as psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.  

Dr Navarro-Millán serves in the American College of Rheumatology Early Career Investigators Subcommittee. This committee aims to disseminate research in the rheumatology field among trainees in rheumatology. She was chosen in 2016 to the American College of Rheumatology European League Against Rheumatology (ACR/EULAR) Exchange Program (one of 10 junior faculty chosen nationally). Her work includes the development of a platform for electronic collection of patient-reported outcomes in patients with RA (https://arthritispower.org). This was the result of her work through a Rheumatology Research Foundation (RRF) Innovative Research Award that she received in 2014. 

Dr Navarro-Millán is a member of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). She is an ad hoc reviewer for multiple rheumatology journals, including Arthritis and Rheumatology, Arthritis Care and Research, Arthritis Research and Therapy and Seminar of Arthritis and Rheumatism.