Orthopaedic complications of Lyme disease in children

Lyme disease is transmitted by the tick Ixodes dammini ("deer tick") or a related ixodid tick. Early diagnosis of children with Lyme disease is difficult because the bite of the ixodid tick often goes unnoticed. Furthermore, erythema chronicum migrans, the characteristic rash of the disease, occurs in less than 50% of cases. However, an awareness of orthopaedic complications of Lyme disease may facilitate an early diagnosis of this disease. Orthopaedic complications of Lyme disease include those which are oligoarticular in nature. Brief intermittent attacks of swelling and pain in one or more joints--primarily large ones--is the pattern of disease most frequently presented. The knee is the joint most commonly affected. In most cases, pain is not severe enough to debilitate the patient or prevent weight-bearing activity. An elevated sedimentation rate is the only consistently abnormal routine laboratory finding in Lyme disease. The only radiographic abnormalities noted in children are effusion and osteopenia. However, the radiograph of a patient known to have Lyme disease may not show any abnormalities at all. Lyme disease shares symptoms in common with septic arthritis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Whenever a distinction between Lyme arthritis and septic arthritis is difficult to make, treatment should be directed at septic arthritis while serological tests for Lyme disease are pending. The physician should consider Lyme disease to be a possible diagnosis of any patient with arthritis and a history of rash or fever, idiopathic neurological disease, or a cardiac conduction defect--especially if there is a history of possible exposure to the carrier tick.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Diagnosis and management of rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is the most commonly diagnosed systemic inflammatory arthritis. Women, smokers, and those with a family history of the disease are most often affected. Criteria for diagnosis include having at least one joint with definite swelling that is not explained by another disease. The likelihood of a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis increases with the number of small joints involved. In a patient with inflammatory arthritis, the presence of a rheumatoid factor or anti-citrullinated protein antibody, or elevated C-reactive protein level or erythrocyte sedimentation rate suggests a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Initial laboratory evaluation should also include complete blood count with differential and assessment of renal and hepatic function. Patients taking biologic agents should be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis. Earlier diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis allows for earlier treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic agents. Combinations of medications are often used to control the disease. Methotrexate is typically the first-line drug for rheumatoid arthritis. Biologic agents, such as tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, are generally considered second-line agents or can be added for dual therapy. The goals of treatment include minimization of joint pain and swelling, prevention of radiographic damage and visible deformity, and continuation of work and personal activities. Joint replacement is indicated for patients with severe joint damage whose symptoms are poorly controlled by medical management.     

Clinical pictures of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis]

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is a clinical syndrome of primary chronic arthritis in childhood. JRA is subdivided into three subtypes according to the clinical picture within six months of the onset of the disease. The clinical picture of systemic onset type usually starts with a characteristic spiking fever. Children with this onset type, sometimes have pleursy, percarditis, myocarditis, generalyzed lymphnode swelling, hepatosplenomegaly and rheumatoid rash, but arthritis may not appear within the first few months. Children with polyarticular onset type, joint manifestations are similar to that of the rheumatoid arthritis of the adult. In patients with the pauciarticular onset type, the prognosis of arthritis is relatively fair compared with the other two types, but the doctor must always be aware of the complication of chronic and recurrent uveitis which sometimes develop to glaucoma, without subjective signs.     

Physical therapy management of patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) is the most common pediatric rheumatic disease and is a leading cause of childhood disability. Physical therapists play a crucial role in the treatment of these children and serve as essential members of the interdisciplinary treatment team. An understanding of the etiology and background of this disease is critical to appropriate evaluation, goal setting, and treatment planning. This review article will provide an overview of the epidemiology, immune system pathophysiology, and clinical characteristics of JRA. Physical therapy principles of care, evaluation procedures, and treatment techniques will be covered in depth. In addition, common orthopedic manifestations and their management, including surgical approaches, will be discussed.     

Shoulder limitation in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

One hundred consecutive children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) were evaluated for shoulder dysfunction. Shoulder arthritis was virtually absent in all 45 children with pauciarticular onset JRA. Twenty of 40 children (50%) with polyarticular JRA and 12 of 15 (80%) with systemic onset JRA had shoulder involvement characterized by pain or restricted passive range of motion (PROM). Ninety-five percent of those with shoulder arthritis had bilateral involvement. Children with systemic onset were likely to have shoulder disease within 2.5 years of onset and to have more severely limited PROM. Children with polyarticular onset developed shoulder arthritis any time during the course of their disease. With either type of onset, internal rotation was the most commonly and severely limited motion, followed by abduction. Clinicians treating children with JRA should carefully monitor pain and examine both rotational and planar components of shoulder motion.     

Diagnosis and Assessment Of the Collagen Diseases

Polyarthritis is a characteristic feature of the collagen diseases which include rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, polymyositis, Sjögren's syndrome and polyarteritis. However, the connective tissues of many different organs other than joints may be affected in these disorders. For example, many workers believe that rheumatoid arthritis should be called rheumatoid disease. The important shared and distinguishing features of each of the collagen diseases are described. The manifestations of the collagen diseases have been found to be associated with vasculitis, lymphocytic infiltration of tissues and the presence of auto-antibodies. Implications of these findings for the management of patients suffering from the collagen diseases are outlined.     

Circulating and intra-articular immune complexes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Correlation of 125I-Clq binding activity with clinical and biological features of the disease.

The correlation between the incidence and level of immune complexes in serum and synovial fluid and the various clinical and biological manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis has been studied. Immune complexes were quantitated using a sensitive radioimmunoassay, the 125I-Clq binding test, in unheated native sera and synovial fluids from 50 patients with seropositive (RA +) and 45 with seronegative (RA -) rheumatoid arthritis, 17 with other inflammatory arthritis, and 37 with degenerative and post-traumatic joint disease. The following observations were made: (a) when compared to the results from patients with degenerative and post-traumatic joint diseases, the 125I-Clq binding activity (Clq-BA) in synovial fluid was found to be increased (by more than 2 SD) in most of the patients with RA + (80%) and RA - (71%) and in 29% of patients with other inflammatory arthritis; the serum Clq-BA was also frequently increased in both RA + (76%) and RA - (49%) patients, but only exceptionally in patients with other inflammatory arthritis (6%); (b) a significant negative correlation existed between the Clq-BA and the immunochemical C4 level in synovial fluids from patients with RA + and RA -; (c) neither the serum nor the synovial fluid Clq-BA in rheumatoid arthritis significantly correlated with the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, the clinical stage of the disease, or the IgM rheumatoid factor titer; and (d) the serum Clq-BA in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and extra-articular disease manifestations (40 +/- 34% in those with RA +,32 +/- 29% in those with RA -) was significantly increased as compared to the serum Clq-BA in patients with joint disease alone (24 +/- 30% in those with RA +, 10 +/- 13% in those with RA -). Experimental studies were carried out in order to characterize the Clq binding material in rheumatoid arthritis. This material had properties similar to immune complexes: it sedimented in a high molecular weight range on sucrose density gradients (10-30S) and lost the ability to bind Clq after reduction and alkylation, or after acid dissociation at pH 3.8, or after passage through an anti-IgG immunoabsorbant. DNase did not affect the Clq BA. These results support the hypothesis that circulating as well as intra-articular immune complexes may play an important role in some pathogenetic aspects of rheumatoid arthritis. The 125I-Clq binding test may also be of some practical clinical value in detecting patients who have a higher risk of developing vasculitis.     

Familial rheumatoid arthritis: linkage of HLA to disease susceptibility locus in four families where proband presented with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

The occurrence of a chronic seronegative polyarthritis has been studied in four families in which the proband presented with some form of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. In these families, histocompatibility testing suggested that susceptibility to arthritis was controlled by a dominant allele with variable penetrance and expressivity at the rheumatoid-like arthritis, first locus (RLA-1). The combined lod scores for the four families (2.70) indicated that the odds in favor of genetic linkage between the major histocompatibility complex and the postulated disease susceptibility gene, RLA-1, were 500:1. In one family, a recombinant event permitted localization of RLA-1 centromeric to HLA-D. Of major interest was the fact that there was significant pleomorphism in the clinical manifestations of arthritis in affected individuals. In some, symptoms first occurred in childhood and in others, in adult life. Even among those with childhood-onset arthritis, different types of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis were observed within the same family.     

TNF-alpha antagonist induced lupus on three different agents

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) antagonists are biologic agents used in the management of inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, seronegative spondyloarthropathies and inflammatory bowel disease. These agents have been recently shown to cause a syndrome called anti-TNF induced lupus (ATIL), a rare condition which has similar clinical manifestations to idiopathic systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Given that extra-intestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease include arthritis, it can be difficult to separate arthritis due to underlying disease from drug-induced arthritis. We present a case of a 28-year-old female with Crohn’s disease, who developed disabling arthritis as a clinical manifestation of ATIL following treatment with three anti-TNF agents, namely infliximab, adalimumab and certolizumab.     

Activity of short-lived suppressor lymphocytes in rheumatoid arthritis

Activity of short-lived suppressor lymphocytes was studied in 26 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Of these, 14 patients had diverse systemic manifestations: rheumatoid nodules, polyneuropathy. Sj?gren's syndrome, and Felty's syndrome. It was established that attenuation of the suppressor activity in rheumatoid arthritis is characteristic of patients with systemic manifestations, who show a high level of circulating immune complexes of rheumatoid factors. The most informative data were obtained as a result of the use of the suboptimal dose of Con A having suppressor activity.     

Clinical and immunogenetic studies in multicase rheumatoid families

We have studied HLA haplotypes, autoimmune diseases and circulating autoantibodies in 23 families with multiple cases of rheumatoid arthritis; 76 per cent of rheumatoid arthritis and 70 per cent of non-rheumatoid individuals were positive for HLA-DR4. The haplotypes Bw44-Bf*S-DR4; B40-Bf*S-DR4; and B15-Bf*S-DR4 were found in 13, 9 and 7 per cent of probands respectively and the B15-Bf*S-DR4 haplotype was found between four and five times more frequently in DR4-positive rheumatoid arthritis than in DR4 positive, non-rheumatoid arthritis families. Rheumatoid arthritis segregated with a DR4 positive haplotype in 13 families and with a DR4 negative haplotype in seven. Analysis of HLA haplotype sharing showed greater than random sharing by affected siblings which is in keeping with genes within the MHS influencing susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis. Autoimmune thyroid disorders were seen in 8 per cent of family members investigated. They were significantly more frequent in those families in which rheumatoid arthritis segregated with a non-DR4 bearing HLA haplotype. This suggests that genes for autoimmune thyroid disease might predispose to rheumatoid arthritis independently of DR4. These genes are probably not HLA-linked, as there was no trend for HLA haplotype sharing to be increased in sibling pairs with either rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease or rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid autoantibodies respectively.     

REACTIVE ARTHRITIS: IS IT A USEFUL CONCEPT?

Reactive arthritis (ReA) is one of the most common arthritides affecting young adults. In most cases it follows urogenital or enteric bacterial infection, but its pathogenesis is not fully understood. It is generally considered a sterile arthritis which appears to involve immune response to bacterial organisms and genetic host susceptibility associated with the presence of HLA-B27 antigen. New findings suggest that in some ReA cases, viable bacteria are present inside the joints, and these organisms may cause the disease and trigger the inflammatory response. ReA manifests clinically as a rheumatoid factor negative oligoarthritis associated with enthesopathy and certain mucosal and skin lesions. Laboratory findings in ReA are non-specific. Although concepts of its pathogenesis are still evolving, so-called ReA remains an important condition to be distinguished from rheumatoid arthritis. Prognosis is generally better. Treatments with known effects in some cases include non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs, intra-articular corticosteroids, oral tetracyclines and sulphasalazine. The occasional chronic and severe ReA may be very difficult to treat.     

Angiogenesis inhibition suppresses collagen arthritis

Neovascularization is observed in a spectrum of diseases such as solid tumors, diabetic retinopathy, and rheumatoid arthritis. It is also evident in rat collage-induced arthritis (CIA), an animal model with histologic, clinical, and radiographic manifestations resembling rheumatoid arthritis. To evaluate the effects of angioinhibition in CIA, Louvain rats were immunized with type II collagen to induce arthritis and then administered an angiogenesis inhibitor, AGM-1470, in an attempt to either prevent arthritis or suppress established disease. Using clinical and radiographic criteria, AGM-1470 prevented CIA and significantly suppressed established disease without evidence of immunosuppression. Histologic sections from control ankle joints manifested pannus and neovascularization, which were absent in experimental animals. This is the first study to investigate this novel agent in an autoimmune disease, and additional evaluation of this promising compound in other diseases that are potentially angiogenesis dependent, such as rheumatoid arthritis, might be warranted.     

Clinical utility of common serum rheumatologic tests

Serum rheumatologic tests are generally most useful for confirming a clinically suspected diagnosis. Testing for rheumatoid factor is appropriate when rheumatoid arthritis, Sj?gren's syndrome or cryoglobulinemia is suspected. Antinuclear antibody testing is highly sensitive for systemic lupus erythematosus and drug-induced lupus. Anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies correlate with lupus nephritis; the titer often corresponds with disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus. Testing for anti-Ro (anti-SS-A) or anti-La (anti-SS-B) may help confirm the diagnosis of Sj?gren's syndrome or systemic lupus erythematosus; these antibodies are associated with the extraglandular manifestations of Sj?gren's syndrome. Cytoplasmic antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody testing is highly sensitive and specific for Wegener's granulomatosis. Human leukocyte antigen-B27 is frequently present in ankylosing spondylitis and Reiter's syndrome, but the background presence of this antibody in white populations limits the value of testing. An elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is a diagnostic criterion for polymyalgia rheumatica and temporal arteritis; however, specificity is quite low. ESR values tend to correlate with disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis and may be useful for monitoring therapeutic response.     

类风湿性关节炎治疗中共享决策应用的现状及展望

类风湿性关节炎(Rheumatoid Arthritis,RA)是一种常见的自身免疫系统疾病,致残率高,只能通过达标治疗(treat-to-target)来缓解症状、控制病情。我国RA患者的治疗达标率仍处于较低水平,其中依从性差是重要因素之一,因此,加强患者的教育,提升其自我管理疾病的能力至关重要。共享决策(Shared decision making,SDM)的应用可提升RA患者对疾病的认知,改善患者的治疗依从性和满意度。本文就共享决策的概念、共享决策在RA中应用的意义和现状进行阐述;同时,对影响共享决策在RA中应用的因素进行分析,提出促进其临床应用的策略,旨在为推进我国RA领域共享决策的开展提供参考。     

Comparative assessment of various programs of plasmapheresis in the combined treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis]

Therapeutic efficacy of various plasmapheresis (PA) programmes was comparatively studied in 92 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. PA performed as a placebo (the control group) confirmed the efficacy of PA in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The choice of a particular regimen of the procedure depended on the health status of the patient. The programme of PA with the elimination of one volume of the circulating plasma (VCP) turned to be the most effective in the patients with highly active course of the disease while the procedures with the elimination of 1/2 and 1/4 VCP should be used in those with moderate or minimal activity of the disease. The assessment of the therapeutic response should be based on the clinical data, ESR and the contents of circulating immune complexes--the most dynamic laboratory tests.     

Arthritis and the gut

The term "enteropathic arthritis" describes joint manifestations that occur in conjunction with gastrointestinal disease. Underlying causes include inflammatory bowel disease, reactive arthritis, iatrogenic disease. Whipple's disease, and other gastrointestinal diseases. A possible association between Reiter's syndrome and human immunodeficiency virus infection also has been reported. These arthritic syndromes can be treated symptomatically, but long-term therapy should be directed at the underlying cause. In most cases, prognosis for survival and joint function is good.     

Management of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Recent years have shown considerable advances in the understanding of pathophysiology and clinical course of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. We now know that there is preclinical disease. Autoantibodies precede clinical symptoms and erosive disease can be seen in patients as early as at the beginning of the symptoms. Clinical progress has come from a better recognition of the natural history of disease. Outcome measures were developed and validated, allowing innovative trial design. Therapy must aim at achieving clinical remission, reversal from destructive to nondestructive arthritis and even healing of erosions. Such aim necessitates early diagnosis of disease and aggressive treatment. Regular assessment of the disease state should be performed. For disease assessment validated tools should be used. The search for new therapies is ongoing. Studies indicate there is a considerable window of opportunity in very early rheumatoid arthritis. If we can use this window of opportunity with an efficient therapeutic strategy we should be able to change the course of disease or even achieve long term remission.     

Reversible visual loss in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis and the role of vascular imaging.

Spontaneous vertebral artery dissection is a condition that can have lethal consequences. The condition should be considered in young male patients who present with a stroke. At presentation, headaches, cerebral ischaemic episodes and oculosympathetic paresis are the most commonly encountered manifestations. The diagnosis is confirmed with angiography. Here, we present a middle-aged male gardener with rheumatoid arthritis and signs of vertebral artery dissection to highlight the importance of diagnosis and discuss the controversies in management.     

Malignant rheumatoid arthritis]

Malignant rheumatoid arthritis (MRA) is a name for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) complicated with systemic vasculitis or other severe extra-articular manifestations, which can cause a fatal outcome. MRA is found in 4-5% of inpatients with RA. The male to female ratio is 1:1.45. Histologically, 3 main types are recognised in rheumatoid vasculitis; RA type (vasculitis with rheumatoid nodule-like appearance), PN type (fibrinoid vasculitis similar to PN), and EA type (endoarteritis obliterans). High titers of rheumatoid factor, immune complexes, hypocomplementemia, hypoproteinemia, decreased choline esterase activity, elevated alkaline phosphatase activity and leukocytosis are characteristic laboratory features of MRA. Recently, it appears that MRA is becoming less and the prognosis is getting better, perhaps due to the advancement in treatment.