Current Rheumatology Reviews - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2007

The issue of immunization in patients with autoimmune disease has plagued rheumatologists for over 50 years. This has been confounded by a report from the World Health Organization recommending that individuals with autoimmune diseases should not receive allergy shots. Case reports have been published demonstrating instances whereby the development of a vasculitic or inflammatory process was temporally associa Read More

Growth-plate cartilage and articular cartilage are virtually avascular tissues. Thus, chondrocytes must exist in extreme microenvironmental conditions, most prominently characterized by low oxygen tension. Diffusion distances for oxygen and nutrients between arteries and single chondrocytes range from 50 m to 3mm. Therefore, chondrocytes need specific strategies to adapt to these hostile conditions. Furtherm Read More

Recent studies on epigenetics, including DNA methylation and its regulatory enzymes, seem to contribute to elucidation of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), although the relationship between DNA methylation and SLE has long been the subject of investigation. To obtain a deeper understanding of the role of DNA methylation in the induction of SLE, we reviewed the relatio Read More

Inflammation in many autoimmune syndromes is modulated by the nervous system. This paper reviews important principles of neurogenic inflammation and findings of substance P overexpression in rheumatic diseases. Substance P is a key molecule in activating inflammation after antidromal axoplasmic transport and secretion at the nociceptor. We summarize the results from studies with rheumatoid arthritis, oste Read More

Somatostatin (somatotropin release inhibitory factor; SRIF) peptides are widely distributed in the mammalian body and, acting through a family of genetically homologous cell surface receptors (sst1-5), regulate cellular secretion and proliferation. Compelling evidence implicates SRIF peptides and peptidyl analogues in chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). SRIF membrane receptors exist on immune Read More

Nodules are commonly found in patients with rheumatic diseases, most often in rheumatoid arthritis, but also in other conditions such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Rheumatoid nodulosis, however, is less frequent and not an established feature of SLE. We describe a patient with SLE and rheumatoid nodulosis, reviewing the literature and suggest that this manifestation falls into the spectrum of rhupus.

Although less than 1% of patients with the antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) develop the catastrophic variant, its potentially lethal outcome emphasizes its importance in clinical medicine today. However, the rarity of this variant makes it extraordinarily difficult to study in any systematic way. In order to put together all the published case reports as well as the new diagnosed cases from all over the world, an international Read More

Rheumatic manifestations, in particular joint complaints, are frequent features in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with a prevalence varying from 10 to 35%. Their spectrum is almost wide, involving bone, tendons, entheses and joints. Joint manifestations may be seen as arthralgia and/or inflammatory arthropathies. These latter may in turn be found in three principal forms: the peripheral, the axial or spondylitis and that o Read More

Until recently the possibility of healing of erosive changes in RA has been neglected. When evaluating the radiographic course within clinical studies, a reduction of the radiographic score indicating improvement was not allowed since repair of erosions was considered to be impossible. During the last 3 decades several case reports and case series have been published demonstrating convincingly that healing of erosions of RA patie Read More

Since the first identification of self-reactive antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus and other systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases, many autoantibodies have been identified as useful probes in molecular and cell biology and as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in clinical immunology. Among the autoantigens, double-stranded desoxoribonucleic acid (dsDNA), the Smith antigen (Sm), ribonucleoproteins (RN Read More

The development of rheumatic diseases after immunization has been reported in the medical literature but a causal relationship has not been established. Infections remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with rheumatic diseases who may be immunodepressed for immunological dysfunctions or immunosuppressed due to the pharmacologic therapy. Although vaccines against infectious diseases Read More