Publications by authors named "Fausto Alvarez"
Background: Rheumatic diseases are a reason for frequent consultation with primary care doctors. Unfortunately, there is a high percentage of misdiagnosis.
Objective: To design an algorithm to be used by primary care physicians to improve the diagnostic approach of the patient with joint pain, and thus improve the diagnostic capacity in four rheumatic diseases.
Objective: To analyze the prevalence and clinical characteristics of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in a large series of patients with Sjögren syndrome (SS).
Methods: We investigated the prevalence of chronic HBV infection in 603 consecutive patients with SS diagnosed in our department between 1994 and 2008. There were 517 patients with primary SS (482 women and 35 men, with a mean age at the time of fulfillment of the classification criteria of 57 years) and 86 patients with SS associated with chronic HCV infection (66 women and 20 men, with a mean age at the time of fulfillment of the classification criteria of 65 years).
Objective: Considering the significant morbidity and mortality of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and the lack of precise information on disease in Latin America, we investigated the clinical and laboratory characteristics associated with PAH in Colombian patients with SSc and review the literature.
Methods: This multicenter study included patients followed at 5 rheumatology units that were systematically assessed using a pretested questionnaire on clinical and immunological variables, focusing on PAH. Conditional logistic regression was employed to assess association between PAH and specific clinical characteristics.