Intro
Just as a reminder… Spondyloarthritis (SpA) is an umbrella term covering auto-immune conditions affecting the Axial skeleton (the spine and sacro-illiac joints). Conditions falling under this umbrella include, Ankylosing Spondylitis and Psoriatic Arthritis. This blog will outline some of the extra-articular features associated with these conditions, it is important to recall that these are not co-morbidities which are separate conditions which can co-exist alongside the discussed condition. These will be explored in different blogs as they have a significant impact on SpA.
PLEASE REMEMBER – THIS BLOG IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR CLINICAL REASONING, IF YOU ARE UNSURE GET ADVICE
Just for clarity, the following percentages are the prevalence of the extra-articular feature in the lifetime of a diagnosed SpA patient.
Common extra articular features include:
Peripheral arthropathy/synovitis – 30%
Peripheral Enthesitis – 40%
Dactylitis – 7%
Psoriasis – 9% (The prevalence of Axial disease in Psoriatic Arthritis patients varies between 25%-75% depending on the definition used which I suspect artificially lowers this number)
Iritis/Uveitis – 20-26%
Crohns/Ulcerative Colitis (IBD) – 4-10%
A number of studies have shown that investigating patients with Psoriasis/Uveitis/IBD and chronic back pain could identify a significant number of undiagnosed Spondyloarthropathies and reduce delay to diagnosis by up to 7 years.
As usual thanks for reading and I hope that you find this useful.
Please get back to me with any feedback, there will be more mini blogs like this one to interlude the longer ones.
