Etiology Gout is a disease with manifestations relating directly from the deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals or uric acid from hyperuricemic body fluids. In humans, urate is a nonmetabolized byproduct of purine metabolism and is excreted via the kidneys…
Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), a term proposed by Resnick is the widely accepted name describing a common disorder affecting mostly elderly persons and characterized by increased bone formation at multiple sites in the spine and peripheral skeleton. Although the…
Etiology Ochronosis is the bluish-black discoloration that can be seen in connective tissues of patients with alkaptonuria, a rare disorder caused by the absence of homogentisic acid (HGA) oxidase. The absence of this enzyme causes a buildup of HGA in…
Hemochromatosis was first described by French physician Armand Trousseau in 1865. The major finding was the presence of a triad associating cirrhosis and diabetes in a tanned man. Von Recklinghausen reported, in 1889, the presence of strong iron deposits within…
Introduction Etiology The idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) include polymyositis (PM), dermatomyositis (DM), and sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM). The IIMs are thought to be systemic autoimmune disorders, although a specific autoantigen has not been identified. DM is a complement mediated…
Etiology Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) represents a heterogeneous group of autoimmune disorders that begin in childhood and involve persistent inflammation of one or more joints. Juvenile idiopathic arthritis is an umbrella term for all chronic childhood arthropathies and can be…
Etiology, Epidemiology, and Prevalence The distinctiveness of the connective tissue diseases is less pronounced than the classification system implies. In practice, there is a continuous spectrum of symptom combinations, merging features of various entities. Mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) is…
Etiology Despite the explosion of molecular genetic research in the past decades, the etiology of this prototype autoimmune disease is still elusive. A confusing complexity of serologic, immunopathologic, and genetic phenomena has been described, most of which are likely to…
Etiology Progressive scleroderma (also known as progressive systemic sclerosis [PSS] ) is one of the collagen vascular diseases, which makes it one of the systemic autoimmune disorders. Collagen vascular diseases include the following: PSS (progressive scleroderma) Systemic lupus erythematosus Polymyositis…
Clinical Presentation Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is the prototype of the seronegative spondyloarthropathies, a moderately heterogeneous group of distinct entities composed of AS, psoriatic spondyloarthropathy, reactive spondyloarthropathy (Reiter syndrome), enteropathic spondyloarthropathy in Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis, and so-called undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy.…