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Disease Phenotype Similar In Familial, Sporadic Ankylosing Spondylitis

Patients with familial and sporadic ankylosing spondylitis (AS) do not differ in disease phenotype, suggests a study of patients from the Netherlands.

Researchers from the Jan van Breemen Institute and the Department of Rheumatology, Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre, both in Amsterdam, sought to assess potential differences in the phenotypic expression of these two forms of AS.

Participants in the study were 165 patients, 55 with familial and 110 with sporadic AS.

The familial AS patients were from families where two or more first-degree relatives had the disease. The 110 patients with the sporadic form of the disease, who were matched on age and sex with the familial disease group, had no first-degree family members with the disease.

Dr Marcel van der Paardt and colleagues found there were no differences between the familial and sporadic forms of the disease with respect to either patients' age at disease onset or their age at diagnosis or in terms of the prevalences of peripheral arthritis and acute anterior uveitis.

The findings in these two groups of patients thus suggest potential differences in genetic makeup are not reflected in any differences in the phenotypic expression of the two forms of this disease, the investigators conclude.
J Rheumatol 2002;29:2583-4. "Dutch Patients with Familial and Sporadic Ankylosing Spondylitis Do Not Differ in Disease Phenotype"

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