Assistant Professor of Medicine, Rheumatology, University of Colorado

Staff Physician, Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Dr. Caplan's major interest is in pharmacoepidemiology and he has focused on the toxicities of therapies for rheumatoid arthritis (including use of steroids) as well as the development of autoimmune pulmonary disease. His expertise extends to use of large administrative datasets and the creation of registries. He has worked with the National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases, and is an investigator with the Veterans Affairs Rheumatoid Arthritis registry and the Program to Understand the Longterm Outcomes in SpondyloARthritis (PULSAR) registry.

Recent NDB research Recent NDB research

Anderson JK, Zimmerman L, Caplan L, Michaud K. Measures of rheumatoid arthritis disease activity. Arthritis Care Res. 2011;63(S11):S14-S36.
Shahouri SH, Michaud K, Mikuls TR, Caplan L, Shaver TS, Anderson JD, et al. Remission of rheumatoid arthritis in clinical practice: Application of the ACR/EULAR 2011 remission criteria. Arthritis Rheum. 2011;63(11):3204-15. PMCID: 3202065. PubMed link
Mikuls TR, Fay BT, Michaud K, Sayles H, Thiele GM, Caplan L, et al. Associations of disease activity and treatments with mortality in men with rheumatoid arthritis: results from the VARA registry. Rheumatology. 2011;50(1):101-9. PMCID: 3108313. PubMed link
Caplan L, Wolfe F, Russell AS, Michaud K. Corticosteroid use in rheumatoid arthritis: prevalence, predictors, correlates, and outcomes. J Rheumatol. 2007;34(4):696-705. PubMed link
Wolfe F, Caplan L, Michaud K. Rheumatoid arthritis treatment and the risk of severe interstitial lung disease. Scand J Rheumatol. 2007;36(3):172-8. PubMed link
Wolfe F, Caplan L, Michaud K. Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and the risk of hospitalization for pneumonia: Associations with prednisone, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, and anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy. Arthritis & Rheumatism. 2006;54(2):628-34. PubMed link
Caplan L, Russell AS, Wolfe F. Steroids for rheumatoid arthritis: the honeymoon revisited (once again). J Rheumatol. 2005;32(10):1863-5. PubMed link
Wolfe F, Caplan L, Michaud K. Measuring the efficacy and effectiveness of rheumatoid arthritis therapy: time to change our thinking and adopt a new model. JRheumatol. 2004;31(12):2317-9. PubMed link