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.

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email physiojack@hotmail.co.uk

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