Vasculitis associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

Vasculitis may accompany rheumatoid arthritis. One must distinguish between vascular involvement associated with the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis, isolated digital vasculitis, and the syndrome of clinical rheumatoid vasculitis. The cause of clinical rheumatoid vasculitis is unknown.

Vasculitis and Cogan's syndrome.

Cogan's syndrome is a rare syndrome manifested by nonsyphilitic interstitial keratitis and audiovestibular symptoms including hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo. Systemic manifestations may occur. Systemic vasculitis and aortic insufficiency secondary to aortitis and valvulitis are two of the most serious manifestations.

Rheumatoid pericarditis: clinical features and survival.

We describe the clinical characteristics and actuarial survival of a consecutive cohort of 41 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and clinical pericarditis who were seen at the Mayo Clinic between 1970 and 1987 and followed up until death or through 1987. The survivors were followed up for a median of 5.1 years.

Economic outcome under Medicare prospective payment at a tertiary-care institution: the effects of demographic, clinical, and logistic factors on duration of hospital stay and part A charges for medical back problems (DRG 243).

We investigated the effects of prospectively identified factors on the duration of hospital stay and part A charges in 240 hospitalizations (of 230 patients) for the diagnosis-related group "medical back problems" (DRG 243) at a tertiary-care institution in 1985 to determine whether heterogeneity existed within this reimbursement category. We confirmed our initial postulates that nonosteoporotic fractures and neck problems, as well as hospitalizations primarily for myelography after outpatient neurologic evaluation, had considerably different economic outcomes and thus excluded these categories from further analysis. Statistical analysis (forward stepwise regression) of the remaining 132 patients who had "general medical back problems" showed that increasing age, associated osteoporosis, and therapeutic injections best explained variation in the natural logarithm of duration of stay (R2 = 0.