OBJECTIVE To assess the safety of anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or spondylarthropathies (SA) and concurrent chronic hepatitis B or C. METHODS Records concerning 480 outpatients attending the Rheumatology Department of the University Hospital of Nice (France) for RA or SA were retrospectively reviewed for the duration of disease, tre...

Objectives: To link validated and widely used instruments measuring physical functional ability in ankylosing spondylitis to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and to compare their contents, based on the results of the linking process. Methods: The Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), the Dougados Functional Index (DFI), the Health Ass...

A hallmark of spondylarthropathies (SpA), such as ankylosing spondylitis, (AS) is the fusion of joints as well as intervertebral spaces. This fusion is caused by the formation of bony spurs appearing as syndesmophytes and osteophytes in the intervertebral spaces and in the joints, respectively. Fusion of joints is based on increased endochondral ossification, which allows bone formation and bri...

Objectives: To characterise the subtypes of HLA-B27 in disease associated patients in the North Island of New Zealand. Methods: The subjects were 194 patients from the North Island of New Zealand. These had previously been positively tissue-typed for HLA-B27 owing to its associations with spondylarthropathies and anterior uveitis. The subjects gave informed consent to further testing of their s...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether factors such as inflammation by laboratory tests and MRI differ between early axial SpA with and without radiographic lesions. METHODS Cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from Devenir des Spondylarthropathies Indifferenciées Récentes (DESIR) cohort patients having recent-onset inflammatory back pain and meeting Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international So...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the number of males per cage as a possible risk factor for murine ankylosing enthesopathy (ANKENT)--a spontaneous joint disease with parallels to human seronegative spondylarthropathies--since ANKENT shows incomplete penetrance of genetic susceptibility factors among individuals living in a stable environment. METHODS Frequency of ANKENT was compared among males housed w...

A prospective study was conducted of 865 patients with uveitis to determine the frequency of associated systemic diseases and to assess the value of limited laboratory screening of these patients. All patients underwent a standard diagnostic protocol followed--when indicated--by special tests and procedures performed in order of likelihood ('tailored approach'). For 628 patients (73%) a specifi...

Paf-acether (paf) is a naturally occurring phospholipid involved in inflammatory processes. The presence of paf, its precursor lyso paf, and lipo-paf has been determined in blood and synovial fluid from 13 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 11 with spondylarthropathies, eight with other inflammatory rheumatisms, 13 with chondrocalcinosis, 15 with osteoarthritis, and also in blood from nin...

The major histocompatibility complex on the sixth chromosome controls expression of a complex series of cell surface antigens which comprise the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system. These markers, beyond their importance in human organ transplantation, have been demonstrated to occur with an increased prevalence in certain disease states. The group of conditions showing the closest association...