Rheumatoid arthritis: travelling biological era a Romanian X-ray population.

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is associated with loss of overall functionality of the locomotion system and it is connected with substantial economic losses.

Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics and healthcare resource utilization characteristics and to analyze the correlations in a cross-sectional sample of 206 patients in Romania.

Method: RA cases have been enrolled from southern and western part of the country, covering a surface of 23 counties.

[Comparative study on Chinese medicine and western medicine for treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee in Caucasian patients].

Objective: To compare the efficacy, safety and tolerability of different therapies in Caucasian patients with osteoarthritis (QA) of the knee.

Methods: Seventy-five cases (90 knee joints) of osteoarthritis were randomly divided into 3 groups, western medicine group, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) group, integrated Chinese and western medicine group. The western medicine group were treated with oral administration of Glucosamine Sulfate, oral administration and external application of non-steroid anti-inflammatory agent, ultrasound physiotherapy, etc.

[Comparative study on Chinese medicine and western medicine for treatment of prolapse of lumbar intervertebral disc].

Objective: To compare therapeutic effects, safety and tolerance of TCM, western medicine and integrated Chinese and western medicine for treatment of acute lumbosacral pain induced by prolapse of lumbar intervertebral disc.

Methods: Ninety cases were randomly divided into 3 groups, 30 cases in each group. They were treated respectively with western medicine, TCM and combined TCM and western medicine, and the pain intensity, activity, muscular tension, and other indexes were monitored after 7 days and 30 days of treatment.

A Romanian instrument to facilitate bone density measurement indication in postmenopausal women.

Unlabelled: The aim of the study is to find and valid a clinical instrument which identifies the women that need a bone density measurement because of their high risk for osteoporosis.

Material And Method: A number of 356 women were enrolled in this study. They filled in a study formular and their bone density was measured by DEXA exam (dual energy X-ray absorbtiometry) in the lumbar spine and proximal femur.

Evaluation of a Romanian version of the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) in patients with spondylarthropathies.

Objective: To develop a Romanian version of the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) and to determine its metric properties in patients with spondylarthropathies (SpA).

Methods: A Romanian version of BASFI was obtained after translation, back-translation and pretesting. Altogether 41 SpA patients fulfilling the ESSG criteria were included, 34 of them satisfying the modified New York criteria for ankylosing spondylitis.

The therapeutic action of cyclosporin A (Sandimmun): its application in rheumatoid arthritis.

The main properties, mechanism of action, mode of administration, side effects and therapeutic indications of Cyclosporin A are reviewed, with special emphasis on its applications in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The drug administration in small doses, only in patients with severe RA, refractory to the usual antirheumatic therapy, was effective in a significant proportion of cases.

Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy secondary to bronchopulmonary cancer (our experience).

During 5 years (1986-1990), 81 of the patients under our care showed bronchopulmonary cancer diagnosed by clinical, x-ray and bronchoscopic examinations. Of these, 69 (85.2) were men and 12 (14.

[An association between ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid polyarthritis; comments on 3 cases].

The article is an analysis of 3 clinical cases, characterized by the presence of the lumbosacral axial involvement, with the radiological evidence of a bilateral sacroiliitis and a peripheral polyarthritis displaying a rheumatoid picture, with rheumatoid factors in the serum and in 2 of the cases also in the articular fluid. These cases belong to the HLA-27 B histocompatibility type, a feature which could be, according also to the data of literature, an explanation of the association of these two diseases.

Advances in the physicochemical, immunologic and cytologic investigation of the synovial fluid.

Investigations of the pathologic synovial fluid (SF), carried out by numerous research teams, have attempted to elucidate certain pathogenic mechanisms suggestive for diagnosis and treatment. Recent studies have tried to draw some biorheologic patterns of the SF, useful for diagnosis and for the evaluation of certain therapies (synoviorthesis). A systematization of the microcrystalline arthropathies has been possible by microscopic examinations of the SF.

[Study of cellular immunity in rheumatoid arthritis].

The responsiveness to mitogens of the in vitro cultural peripheral blood lymphocytes from 60 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and from controls was evaluated in terms of H3 TdR uptake. The size of the response was tested for a correlation with the percentages of T and B lymphocytes, determined by E and EAC rosette test, as well as with the various alterations of the clinical and biological parameters. In the RA cultures an elevated level of spontaneous H3 TdR uptake was found, which could be an in vitro carry-over of an activation in vivo.