Chronic pelvic pain is a poorly understood and underdiagnosed condition. Maeve Whelan offers advice to doctors who encounter patients with it Millions of men and women suffer from chronic pelvic pain (CPP). The symptoms are of rectal, genital or abdominal pain or discomfort, pain or discomfort associated with sexual activity and often symptoms of urinary [...]

Rory Hafford sits down with the straight-talking Prof Moira O’Brien to discuss bone health, the teaching of medicine and the lure of the Olympics Talking to Prof Moira O’Brien is a bit like being caught in a wind tunnel! In fact, ideas and words can come hurtling towards you like a runaway train, or bang [...]

Dr Aizad Mumtaz and Prof Oliver FitzGerald of the Department of Rheumatology at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin examine the latest management options for psoriatic arthritis Psoriasis is a common skin disorder affecting about 3 per cent of the population in Ireland. Somewhere in the range of between 5 per cent and 40 per cent [...]

Doctors prescribing proton pump inhibitors for conditions such as dyspepsia should be aware of the risks associated with this class of medications and weigh them carefully against the likely benefits, a series of studies has suggested. One of the studies, all published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, analysed fracture rates among participants in the [...]

Many general practitioners often treat patients with low back pain in a manner that does not appear to match the care endorsed by international clinical guidelines, according to a new report from Australia. The report followed a study in which doctors assessed the care provided for new episodes of low back pain during 3,533 patient [...]

Sandra Ryan reports from the Musculoskeletal Imaging Masterclass for Clinicians, where attendees heard about the latest diagnostic developments Within the last decade, ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have become established imaging techniques for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with musculoskeletal disease. The advancements in US imaging have been made possible through technological [...]

Osteoporosis Supplement: Prof Moira O’Brien discusses the growing awareness of vitamin D as being essential to bone health and its necessity in the adequate absorpotion of calcium, as well as the most current research on calcium supplements In the last decade, the increasing importance of vitamin D to health, especially bone health, has been highlighted [...]

Osteoporosis Supplement: Prof Gerald H. Tomkin looks at recent studies investigating the merits of different osteoporosis treatments and stresses the importance of compliance The recent bad weather with ice and snow has, among other things, concentrated the mind yet again on fractures and the underlying pathology. I have no doubt that the DEXA scans have [...]

Osteoporosis Supplement: Researchers have found a potential new treatment for osteoporosis Using an investigational drug that inhibits serotonin synthesis in the gut cured osteoporosis in post-menopausal rodents, according to an international team led by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in the United States. The findings appear in Nature Medicine (1). The research involved the [...]

Natalya Anderson reviews a study which found that the risk of vertebral fracture in young postmenopausal women could be reduced with strontium ranelate treatment Strontium ranelate may reduce the risk of vertebral fracture in young postmenopausal women with severe osteoporosis, according to study results published by the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. (1) “Vertebral fractures [...]