How do French rheumatologists treat early rheumatoid arthritis?

Although factors that appear to predict long-term outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis have been identified, there is no consensus about the treatment early in the disease. To determine how French office- and hospital-based rheumatologists treat early rheumatoid arthritis, we created three clinical vignettes corresponding to different levels of severity of early rheumatoid arthritis (less than six months' disease duration). Cases 1 and 2 were relatively young patients (35 and 50 years), and Case 1 had numerous poor prognosis factors.

[Cardiac manifestations of atrophying polychondritis. Apropos of a case disclosed by pericardial effusion and auricular flutter].

We report the case of a 50 year old patient, hospitalised with a clinical record suggestive of acute pericarditis and disturbance of auricular rhythm of the flutter type. The consciousness of muscular pain, subcutaneous peri-articular nodules developing over periods of 10 to 15 days and the appearance of chondritis of the right auricle on the 2nd day of hospitalisation led to a diagnosis of atrophying polychondritis. A two-dimensional, TM echocardiographic examination confirms the presence of a discrete, pericardial effusion and presents evidence for a concentric hypertrophy and a heterogeneous aspect of the left ventricular myocardium.