About CurrentRheuma
What’s included
CurrentRheuma covers newly published rheumatology research in humans, from a fixed set of leading journals. These are the rules that decide what becomes a Brief.
Coverage
Journals
CurrentRheuma monitors 23 rheumatology, bone and joint and general medical journals. The list is reviewed each year.
The archive is complete from January 2023 to today.
Study types
What becomes a Brief
Studies in humans that have an abstract. A Brief is made even when the abstract leaves details out; those are marked as not reported.
Included
- Randomized controlled trials
- Observational studies
- Meta-analyses
- Diagnostic and prognostic studies
- Secondary analyses of trials
- Mechanistic or translational studies with a rheumatology question
- Society statementsScientific statements, consensus documents and position papers: their own type, summarized without a results section
Not included
- Editorials
- Letters
- Case reports
Scope
Rheumatology relevance
Every study in a rheumatology journal counts as rheumatology research, with the exceptions below for joint surgery and osteoporosis. Elsewhere the line is drawn as follows.
- Bone and joint journals and general medical journals
- Included when the study population is defined by a rheumatic disease or a high risk of one: inflammatory or crystal arthritis, lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome, systemic sclerosis, Sjögren's disease, inflammatory myopathies, mixed and undifferentiated connective tissue disease, systemic vasculitis and polymyalgia rheumatica, Still's disease and other autoinflammatory diseases, IgG4-related disease, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis or fragility fracture. Also included when the primary outcome is the onset, flare or diagnosis of one of these diseases, or the study tests how one is diagnosed or classified. A drug class alone does not bring a study in, nor does a rheumatic disease or musculoskeletal symptom among secondary or safety outcomes, nor an inflammatory marker or autoantibody measured as an outcome. Disease limited to the skin (other than lupus), the bowel, the eye or the kidney is not included.
- Joint surgery
- From any journal: surgical technique, implants and approach, the results of joint replacement and other joint surgery, fracture fixation, rehabilitation after joint surgery and the treatment of sports and traumatic injuries are not included. Whether to operate is a treatment choice: surgery compared with non-surgical treatment or with not operating in osteoarthritis is included, and so is the care of rheumatic disease around surgery, such as pausing or continuing a drug.
- Osteoporosis
- Judged article by article in every journal, the rheumatology journals included. Included when osteoporosis or fragility fracture defines the population or is the primary outcome. Not included when bone density or fracture is only a secondary or safety outcome, nor when the study concerns another endocrine or metabolic bone disease.
- Musculoskeletal pain
- Fibromyalgia is included from every journal. Non-specific or regional pain, such as back, neck or shoulder pain, is included when published in a rheumatology journal and not when published elsewhere.
- Clinical and laboratory research
- Studies with human participants, human data or human specimens are included, mechanistic and translational studies in patients among them. Studies only in animals or cells, human cells studied in the laboratory included, are not; nor are surveys of clinicians' workforce, careers or wellbeing.
Organization
Topics and updates
Every Brief is placed in one of 14 topics, and the journals are monitored continuously for new research.