Diagnosis of growing pains in a Brazilian pediatric population: a prospective investigation.

Objective: To establish the clinical aspects of growing pains and to determine, through differential diagnosis, how many patients who referred themselves to a specialized clinic were found to have growing pains.

Methods: This study prospectively examined the presence of growing pains in a self-reported population of children and adolescents with signs and symptoms (lower limb pains) of unexplained etiology.

Results: A total of 345 children and adolescents were evaluated; 174 (50.

Alterations in cytokine profile and dendritic cells subsets in peripheral blood of rheumatoid arthritis patients before and after biologic therapy.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by chronic joint inflammation and continuous immune cell infiltration in the synovium. These changes are linked to inflammatory cytokine release, leading to eventual destruction of cartilage and bone. During the last decade new therapeutic modalities have improved the prognosis, with the introduction of novel biological response modifiers including anti-TNFalpha CTLA4Ig and, more recently, anti-IL6.