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Incidence Of Inflammatory Joint Disease In Southern Sweden Comparable To Other Countries
A DGReview of :"Annual incidence of inflammatory joint diseases in a population based study in southern Sweden."
Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD Online)
10/07/2002
By Andrew A. Skolnick
The first prospective population based annual incidence study of early arthritis in Sweden finds that the incidence of inflammatory joint disease is comparable to figures reported in other countries.
Maria Soderlin and colleagues at Vaxjo Central Hospital in Vaxjo, Sweden, conducted a prospective referral study of an adult population in Kronoberg County, in southern Sweden.
The patients were referred from primary healthcare centres to the rheumatology department in Vaxjo Central Hospital or to the private rheumatologist in Vaxjo, who participated in the study.
The investigators also checked the hospital records for patients with joint aspirates during the inclusion period. The patients were registered as incident cases if the onset of the joint inflammation occurred between 1 May 1999 and 1 May 2000.
A systematic follow up of incoming referrals was conducted up to January 31, 2001. Children under the age of 16 and patients with septic arthritis, crystal arthropathies, or osteoarthritis were excluded from the study.
A total of 151 new cases with inflammatory joint diseases were identified during one year, the researchers reported. This corresponded to a total annual incidence of 115 per 100,000. Of these, 31 patients (21 percent) had rheumatoid arthritis, which indicates an annual incidence of 24 per 100,000 (29 per 100,000 women and 18 per 100,000 men).
Reactive arthritis was diagnosed in 37 patients (24 percent), which suggests an annual incidence of 28 per 100,000). Fifty-four patients had undifferentiated arthritis (36 percent), which corresponds to an annual incidence 41 per 100,000. Eleven patients presented with psoriatic arthritis (7 percent), indicating an annual incidence of 8 per 100,000), the investigators reported.
The incidence of Lyme arthritis was small in this non-endemic area, and the incidence of sarcoid arthritis corresponded to that in earlier studies.
"In this population, 36 percent of the incident cases had undifferentiated arthritis, whereas rheumatoid arthritis and reactive arthritis accounted for 45 percent of the cases," the researchers concluded. "The incidence figures compare well with figures reported from other countries."
Ann Rheum Dis 2002; 61: 911-915.
"Annual incidence of inflammatory joint diseases in a population based study in southern Sweden."
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