This editorial refers to ‘Looking Ahead: Best Practice for the Care of People with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS)’, published by the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society. The conclusions are underlined by the accompanying paper, ‘Services for people with ankylosing spondylitis in the UK—a survey of rheumatologists and patients’, by Louise Hamilton et al., doi:10.1093/rheumatology/ker013, on pag...

ankylosing spondylitis (as) is an inflammatory rheumatic disease. phlegmasia cerulea dolens is a severe form of deep vein thrombosis characterized by swelling, pain, and bluish discoloration. treatment delay may cause venous gangrene, tissue ischemia, limb loss or death. here, we present an as case who presented with phlegmasia cerulea dolens and treated by catheter-directed thrombolysis.

Using a standard microcytotoxicity (NIH) technique of tissue typing, the HLA-B27 antigen was identified in 30 out of 34 patients (HH.2%) with classical ankylosing spondylitis (AS), compared to 6 out of 70 controls (H.6%) (P < 0.005). We also found this antigen in 8 out of 76 (10.5%) patients with non-AS arthritis.

Pyogenic spondylitis is a frequently observed disease in orthopedics, and the number of cases is increasing. Some patients with pyogenic spondylitis suffer from vertebral destruction due to infection. The disease is typically treated with antibiotics, bed rest, spinal support, and lesion curettage; however, vigorous drug therapy against vertebral body destruction by pyogenic spondylitis has not...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The past 18 months has seen considerable advances in the use of MRI for assessment of ankylosing spondylitis, to quantify active inflammation in the spine and sacroiliac joints which may not otherwise be detectable and to therefore measure change due to therapeutic interventions. RECENT FINDINGS Characterization of the extension and morphology of inflammation in ankylosing s...

We compared the incidence, nature and frequency of chest pain in a group of 45 ankylosing spondylitis patients with an age and sex matched group of normals. Twenty-five ankylosing spondylitis patients had experienced recurrent chest pain compared to three normals, and had a significantly reduced chest expansion. The presence of chest pain in ankylosing spondylitis can be an early presenting fea...

it has been demonstrated that natural killer (nk) cells play a role in regulation of autoimmunity. they play a protective role in several rodent disease models. in this study we aimed to compare the immunophenotypic features of nk cells in ankylosing spondylitis (as) with normal subjects with regard to cd56 and cd16 molecules. this study was carried out on 30 as patients and 33 normal volunteer...

Objective Spondylitis is often chemotherapy resistant and requires long-term treatment. Without adequate chemotherapy, the outcome can be fatal or result in severe neurologic damage. Therefore, differentiating the etiology of spondylitis is very important, particularly in spontaneous cases. As the prevalence of tuberculosis in Korea has decreased in recent years, updated clinical research about...

BACKGROUND Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that plays essential roles in calcium and phosphorus metabolism, bone formation and mineralization homeostasis, also has a role in the maintenance of immune-homeostasis. OBJECTIVE We aimed to investigate seasonal serum vitamin D levels and seasonal disease activity in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, and Osteoarthritis. ME...

Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease, which is characterized by inflammation of the spine and the sacroiliac joints. To date, the disease etiology remains unclear. In the present study, the correlation of T lymphocyte subset changes with the progression of ankylosing spondylitis was investigated. A total of 55 patients with ankylosing spondylitis (22 severe and 23 ...