Spondylarthropathy with distal joint involvement.

To study whether the presence of distal joint involvement in spondylarthropathy corresponds to a particular set of the disease, one hundred and twenty six patients with spondylarthropathy were included in a retrospective study. Two groups of patients were defined according to the presence or the absence of distal joint involvement and their clinical, radiological, and biological features were compared. The patients with distal joint involvement had a later onset of spondylarthropathy and showed higher levels of biological markers of inflammation in their peripheral blood.

The antiperinuclear factor in spondylarthropathies.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of antiperinuclear factor (APF) in patients with spondylarthropathy and the relationships between this autoantibody and a variety of clinical, radiological and serological findings. We conducted a retrospective review of the medical records of all patients first admitted to the Rheumatology Unit of the Brest University Medical School Hospital from 1 January 1986 to 31 December 1994, and who met the European Spondylarthropathy Study Group (ESSG) criteria at admission. Each patient had a standard battery of tests.

The HLA B27 antigen-spondylarthropathy association. Impact on clinical expression.

To determine the impact of the HLA B27 antigen on the expression of spondylarthropathies, we conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of the 116 spondylarthropathy patients whose HLA B27 phenotype was determined during a stay in the Morvan Hospital rheumatology department, Brest, France, between January 1, 1986, and December 31, 1994. Age at disease onset was younger in the HLA B27-positive patients (31.5 +/- 14 years versus 40 +/- 15 years; p = 0.

[Systemic urticaria, sclerosing osteopathy, monoclonal gammopathy (Schnitzler syndrome). Apropos of a case].

A 65 years old man has been suffering from the upper limbs and legs for 2 years. Bone pain was associated with a non pruritic chronic urticaria and fever. Bone scintigraphy showed lesions of the lower limbs.