Persistent undifferentiated arthritis: Evaluation of 60 cases

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Küçük Resim

Tarih

2023

Dergi Başlığı

Dergi ISSN

Cilt Başlığı

Yayıncı

Galenos Publishing House

Erişim Hakkı

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Özet

Objective: Undifferentiated arthritis (UA) is diagnosed after excluding other arthritis-related diseases. Current data generally focuses on the early forms of UA, and knowledge about persistent UA (pUA) is insufficient. Therefore, we investigated the general characteristics of patients with pUA in this study. Methods: The study included patients with persistent peripheral arthritis of undetermined etiology lasting longer than six months. Medical records were reviewed retrospectively. Patients having an arthritis-associated diagnosis were excluded. Arthritis was verified by magnetic resonance imaging. The disease activity was evaluated with a visual analog scale. Results: We totally analyzed 60 patients with a mean age of 49.7 years and 76.7% of them were female. The mean disease duration was 78 months, and 21.6% of them had a family history of rheumatic diseases. The most common clinical pattern was knee monoarthritis (56.6%), the number of affected joints was two at most, and the frequency of erosive arthritis was 35%. Among all variables, only metatarsophalangeal joint involvement was significantly higher in patients with erosive arthritis (p=0.046). 98% of patients achieved remission with disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Conclusion: Our research shows that pUA shares several characteristics with other rheumatic diseases such as the family history of rheumatic disease, good response to DMARDs, and chronic course. We found that the cases with pUA show mono/oligoarticular involvement as spondyloarthritis; female gender predominance, and (sometimes) erosive course as rheumatoid arthritis. A long lag time is a major problem, and the prognosis of pUA is generally benign. Further studies are needed for a better definition of this clinical entity. © 2023 by the Turkish Society for Rheumatology/Journal of Turkish Society for Rheumatology published by Galenos Publishing House.

Açıklama

Anahtar Kelimeler

chronic arthritis, inflammatory arthritis, persistent arthritis, Undifferentiated arthritis

Kaynak

Journal of Turkish Society For Rheumatology

WoS Q Değeri

Scopus Q Değeri

Q4

Cilt

15

Sayı

1

Künye