Kuwait Recommendations on Vaccine Use in People with Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases.

People with IRD are at increased risk of infection, and in 2011 EULAR made general recommendations for vaccination in these patients. Global and European perspectives are important, but they cannot accurately reflect the individual situations of patients in different countries and regions. Based on our clinical experience and opinions, we have sought to tailor the original EULAR recommendations to include advice for vaccination with new agents approved in the intervening years-including the new class of targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme gene polymorphism in patients with psoriatic arthritis.

To investigate the frequency of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism genotypes in adults with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), a heterogeneous chronic disease with autoimmune pathology. ACE gene I/D polymorphism influences the plasma and tissue levels of ACE and has an involvement in inflammatory mechanism. The frequency of ACE gene I/D polymorphism genotypes was determined in 51 adults with PsA from Kuwait, and compared to that in 100 ethnically matched healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction.

Incidence of musculoskeletal pain in adult Kuwaitis using the validated Arabic version of the WHO-ILAR COPCORD Core Questionnaire.

Background: The WHO-ILAR Community Oriented Program for Control of Rheumatic Diseases (COPCORD) primarily aims to estimate the burden of musculoskeletal symptoms/disorders. We estimated the incidence of musculoskeletal pain in the first community-based COPCORD study in Kuwait

Subjects And Methods: The validated Arabic version of the WHO-ILAR COPCORD Core Questionnaire was used in a survey of 2500 randomly selected Kuwaiti households to assess the frequency of musculoskeletal pain, disability, and health-seeking behavior in adult Kuwaitis. Those subjects reporting no musculoskeletal pain were identified and followed-up for a period of one year by contacting them every 2 weeks.