Undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD) is a unique clinical entity, a potential forerunner of well-established systemic autoimmune/rheumatic diseases. UCTD is characterized by the presence of various clinical symptoms, as well as a diverse repertoire of autoantibodies, resembling systemic autoimmune diseases. Since approximately one third of these patients consequently transform into...

Introduction Macrophage Activation Syndrome (MAS) is a severe complication of rheumatic diseases, frequently associated with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA), but also described in others pediatric inflammatory disorders including Juvenile Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Kawasaki disease. Due to the close resemblance to a group of histiocytic disorders collectively known as ...

Malaysia is progressing very rapidly in all aspects of life. It is fast developing and very soon it will be·a fully developed country. Many dangerous diseases, especially those of infectious aetiology have been eradicated and controlled. However, there are other diseases which are quite prevalent and result in high morbidity and mortality .. Cardiovascular diseases are good examples of these, a...

The use of systemic steroids for inflammatory diseases is a controversial issue-one that continuously invites disagreement throughout the healthcare community. However, there is little, if any, mention of systemic steroid recommendations among widely used rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis guidelines. This relative dearth of information is contrasted by the pervasive syste...

Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) is a potentially life threatening complication of chronic rheumatic diseases, particularly systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). A number of triggers have been related to the development of MAS, including viral infections, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug therapy, and gold salt injections. We describe a patient with systemic JIA who developed MAS s...

Background: Anti-nuclear antibodies (ANAs) are specific antibodies directed against a variety of nuclear antigens. Indirect immunofluorecence (ANA-IFA) and Enzyme Immunoassay (ANA-EIA) are commonly used methods for ANA detection. The positivity of ANA-IFA using HEp-2 cell substrate is 90-100% in systemic rheumatic diseases. On the other hand positivity of ANA-EIA is found to be much lower in di...

Objective. Environmental risk factors, such as air pollution, have been studied in relation to the risk of development of rheumatic diseases. We performed a systematic literature review to summarize the existing knowledge. Methods. MEDLINE (1946 to September 2016) and EMBASE (1980 to 2016, week 37) databases were searched using MeSH terms and keywords to identify cohort, case-control, and case ...

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease in human populations. Over the past decade there has been considerable progress in our understanding of the fundamental descriptive epidemiology (levels of disease frequency: incidence and prevalence, comorbidity, mortality, trends over time, geographic distributions, and clinical characteristics) of the rheumatic disease...

Hyperuricemia has long been established as the major etiologic factor in gout. In recent years, a large body of evidence has accumulated that suggests that hyperuricemia may play a role in the development and pathogenesis of a number of metabolic, hemodynamic, and systemic pathologic diseases, including metabolic syndrome, hypertension, stroke, and atherosclerosis. A number of epidemiologic stu...