Sero negative rheumatoid arthritis

Purpose Patients with recurring kidney stone events can expect significant morbidity and functional impairment. Few studies have evaluated the effect of bilateral kidney stones on disease progression and quality of life. We wanted to determine the association of bilateral stone disease on age of onset, and the impact on number of stone events and individual kidney stone disease specific Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) by analysing the validated and prospectively collected Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life (WISQOL) database...

Background: The difficulty in determining synovitis, tenosynovitis, or enthesitis by physical examination (PE) has limited the diagnostic capability of CASPAR for psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of CASPAR with the integration of ultrasound (US). Methods: Patients with a hint of PsA were enrolled. Besides routine PE for tender or swollen joints, enthesitis, and dactylitis, US was performed to evaluate peripheral joints, entheses, and tendons...

Rheumatoid meningitis is a rare extra-articular manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis, often with non-specific symptoms. In most cases brain MRI shows a patchy lepto- and pachymeningeal enhancement, but the diagnosis currently relies on examination of a meningeal biopsy with presence of plasma cells and rheumatoid noduli. Presence of IgM rheumatic factor (RF) has been found in several cases and recently four cases have shown high titer anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) in CSF, suggesting this as a potential marker for rheumatoid meningitis...

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in patients with inflammatory arthritis, and to compare the efficacy of tuberculin skin test (TST) and QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT) in screening for LTBI in these patients. Method: Medical records of 149 patients with inflammatory arthritis admitted to inpatient of Peking University International Hospital from December 2015 to December 2017 (diagnosis with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, sero-negative spondyloarthropathy, psoriatic arthritis, or reactive arthritis) who accepted TST or QFT were collected...

Multiple rice body formation is a rare presentation of chronic sub-acromial bursitis secondary to extensive underlying rheumatoid arthritis, sero-negative inflammatory arthritis or tuberculous joints. Although there is usually an accompanying inflammatory arthropathy, it can occur in the absence of any underlying systemic disorder. We report a case of five years old neglected rice body deposition in shoulder in a 54-years old lady diagnosed to be having rheumatoid arthritis. After initial investigations, arthroscopic removal of rice bodies with bursa excision relieved the symptoms...

Dear Editor, Subcutaneous granuloma annulare (SGA) is considered a rare clinical variant of granuloma annulare, a common self-healing chronic inflammatory disorder that may appear in childhood as well as in adult age (1-3). A 29-year-old female patient reported the onset of several small subcutaneous nodules on the dorsal aspect of the second interphalangeal joint of the left medius finger and the left elbow, accompanied by vague joint pain, had occurred 13 years ago. Specific markers for rheumatoid arthritis were negative, leading to a diagnosis of sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis, for which treatment with methotrexate was initiated...

OBJECTIVE: Rheumatoid factor (RF) testing is used in primary care in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however a positive RF may occur without RA. Incorrect use of RF testing may lead to increased costs and delayed diagnoses. The aim was to assess the performance of RF as a test for RA and to estimate the costs associated with its use in a primary care setting. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective cohort study using the Information System for the Development of Research in Primary Care database (contains primary care records and laboratory results of >80% of the Catalonian population, Spain)...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence of anti-carbamylated protein (anti-CarP) antibodies in a French cohort of patients with early arthritis and to investigate their association with clinical features, final diagnosis, prognosis, and comorbidities. METHODS: The presence of anti-CarP antibodies among patients with early arthritis in the French Etude et Suivi des Polyarthrites Indifférenciées Récentes (ESPOIR) cohort (n = 720) was determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay...

Sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a highly heterogeneous disorder with only a few additive loci identified to date. We report a genotypic variability-based genome-wide association study (vGWAS) of six cohorts of sero-negative RA recruited in Europe and the US that were genotyped with the Immunochip. A two-stage approach was used: (1) a mixed model to partition dichotomous phenotypes into an additive component and non-additive residuals on the liability scale and (2) the Levene's test to assess equality of the residual variances across genotype groups...

Although many epidemiological studies have investigated the association between body mass index (BMI) and risk of rheumatoid (RA), the results have been inconsistent. Therefore, we performed a dose-response meta-analysis to quantify the dose-response association between BMI and RA risk.We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases and reference lists of articles for relevant studies published before August 2014 using terms related to BMI and RA. Fixed or random-effects models were used to estimate the pooled relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI)...

BACKGROUND: Whipple's disease is a rare, often multisystemic chronic infectious disease caused by the rod-shaped bacterium Tropheryma whipplei. Very rarely the heart is involved in the process of the disease, leading to culture-negative infective endocarditis. Up to 20 % of all infective endocarditis are blood culture-negative and therefore a diagnostic challenge. We present two unusual cases of culture-negative infective endocarditis encountered in two different patients with prior history of arthralgia...

The aim of this study was to investigate treatment response and hepatic safety of anti-tumor necrosis factor-α therapy among patients with concomitant rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We reviewed the charts of 101 consecutive RA patients who were eligible for anti-TNF-α therapy in the Chiayi Branch of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Group A patients were sero-positive for anti-HCV antibodies and had HCV RNA but were negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Group B (the control group) patients were sero-negative for both anti-HCV antibodies and HBsAg...

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that polymorphisms in Toll-like Receptors (TLRs) are associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), but the implicated alleles have differed between studies. The aim of this investigation was to explore whether polymorphisms of TLR genes are associated with RA in a predominantly Caucasian population from Denmark using a case-control approach. FINDINGS: DNA samples (3 university hospital outpatient clinics) were obtained from patients with RA (n = 704) and healthy controls (n = 639) in a Danish population...

Psoriatic arthritis is a condition that causes inflammation of the joints of psoriatic patients. Psoriatic arthritis also affects tissues surrounding the joints including tendon and ligaments. Psoriatic arthritis (PsA), recognized for over 100 years, is the second most frequent diagnostic category after Rhematoid Arthritis (RA) and occurring up to 10% of patients with skin psoriasis. Although PsA is a sero-negative arthritis and the absence of rheumatoid factor is a characteristic laboratory finding, it may be present in 3% of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients...

The authors present the case of a 53-year-old female, initially admitted in a rheumatology department for fever and diffuse arthritis--being diagnosed with sero-positive rheumathoid arthritis. Although the chest X-ray and CT scan of thorax showed several abnormal features (medium lobe atelectasis, pseudo-cyst in the posterior segment of the right upper lobe with satellite milliary nodules, mediastinal lymph node enlargement), the investigations performed in our pneumology department couldn't establish the etiology of radiological abnormalities...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the associated factors of subclinical atherosclerosis measured with carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) among rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients without any overt traditional cardiovascular (CV) risk factors. METHODS: Forty RA patients with matched age and gender healthy controls were recruited. Carotid ultrasound was performed to all subjects. CIMT was considered to be abnormally thickened if it was more than the 75th percentile matched for age and sex reference values...

Long since it have been suggested that a subpopulation of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), diagnosed with negative rheumatoid factor (RF) tests, represents a clinical entity quite distinct from that of seropositive rheumatoid arthritis. The aim of the study was to establish a scientific comparative analysis between RA seronegative and seropositive, regarding course and prognoses of the disease. Two hundred fifty patients with rheumatoid arthritis according to the (American College of Rheumatology) criteria were retrospectively studied by analysis the course and prognoses of disease...

SESSION TYPE: Miscellaneous Case Report Posters IIPRESENTED ON: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 01:30 PM - 02:30 PMINTRODUCTION: Lung disease occurs commonly in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Recently, Fischer and colleagues demonstrated that anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) positive individuals with airways or interstitial lung disease may represent a "pre-articular" RA phenotype.CASE PRESENTATION: A 61-year-old Caucasian man, with a 7.5 pack-year smoking history, seasonal allergies, gastroesophageal reflux disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and dyslipidemia presented with pleuritic chest pain and dry cough of five months duration...

AIM: To investigate the differences of B lymphocyte stimulator (BlyS) level and frequency of lymphocytes between sero-negative and sero-positive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. METHODS: Sixty-nine RA patients were enrolled into this study and their clinical data were recorded. The BlyS levels in plasma, frequency of T and B lymphocytes, as well as T-helper (Th) subgroups were compared between sero-negative and sero-positive RA patients. Furthermore, the correlations between clinical features and immunological features were analyzed...

Our aim was to elucidate the relative amount of the different splice forms of FoxP3 mRNA in CD4+ T cells in peripheral blood (PB) compared to synovial fluid (SF) in RA and PsA patients. FoxP3 mRNA was measured using a quantitative real-time PCR method. CD4+ T cells were isolated from 17 paired samples of PB and SF from RA and PsA patients, and PB from 10 controls. FoxP3fl and FoxP3Δ2 mRNA was significantly increased (6.7 and 2.1-fold, respectively) in PB CD4+ T cells from RA patients compared to controls. FoxP3fl and Δ2 mRNA in SF CD4+ T cells was increased compared to controls in sero-negative RA and PsA, but not in sero-positive RA patients, who had a high FoxP3 expression in both PB and SF...