FMF & AS research

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Hi Posting this as it is very interesting about Diseases.

Just forwarding a post from my FMF group on the connection between these two

issues:

Hip involvement in patients with familial Mediterranean fever. A review of

ten cases.

Younes M, Kahn MF, Meyer O.

Rheumatology Department (Professor O. Meyer), Bichat Teaching Hospital, 46,

rue Henri-Huchard, 75018 Paris, France.

Hip involvement is uncommon in familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) and can

result either from a process specific to this disease or from a coexisting

chronic inflammatory joint disease, usually suggestive of ankylosing

spondylitis

(AS). We report ten cases of FMF with radiologically-documented inflammatory

hip

disease. Five patients had AS and one had juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

There

were six men and four women, with a mean age of 34.4 years +/- 17.6 (range,

15-70 years). Onset of the inflammatory hip disease occurred after bouts of

acute hip symptoms in one of the patients with isolated FMF and after

protracted

hip arthritis in another; the two other patients had no history of hip

symptoms. The HLA-B27 antigen was looked for in two of the five patients with

FMF and

AS, with negative results in both; another patient in this subgroup had

severe ulcerative colitis. Total hip replacement or replacement of the

acetabulum

was required in six patients, including two with isolated FMF. Chronic joint

disease has been estimated to contribute fewer than 5% of the joint

manifestations in FMF. In previous studies, the hips and knees were affected

in 75% of

patients with chronic joint disease related to FMF. The association of FMF

and AS

(usually without the HLA-B27 antigen) has been well documented, although the

pathogenic mechanisms that link these two conditions remain unknown.

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