A Comparative Radiological Study of Reiter's Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis

Abstract

The radiological appearances in twenty-five patients with Reiter's disease have been compared with those in eighty-one with rheumatoid arthritis and thirty-eight with ankylosing spondylitis. The similarities and differences have been analysed. Changes of periosteal new bone in the calcaneum appear to be the only significant differentiating factor, although minor differences in incidence and distribution occur elsewhere. Sacro-iliitis is a common radiological feature of long-standing Reiter's disease.

Does Painful Heels in Ankylosing Spondylitis Demonstrate Distinctive Features on Plain Radiographs: A Study of 104 Cases

“…This higher incidence is presumably due to the condition that we specifically enrolled patients with symptomatic heel pain, even though our patients were younger and their disease was of shorter duration than those in previous studies [1,8,9]. In previous studies, AS patients were found to have radiographic changes in their heel bones, such as erosion, spurs and periostitis [1,4,13]. Such lesions, which develop as a result of inflammatory processes on entheses, may not be disease-specific but rather late consequences of enthesitis in advanced AS [13,14].…”

“…Few reports have investigated the heel conditions of AS patients by plain radiography, and these mainly focused on asymptomatic heels [4,8,9]. In those studies, it was noted that 17% to 58% of patients with AS had radiographic changes in their heels [1,9] and some radiographic alterations were seen in the absence of local symptoms [8,11].…”

“…Enthesitis is defined as inflammation at the bony interfaces of ligaments, tendons, aponeurosis, annulus fibrosus and joint capsules [3]. Because many of such structures originate from, are inserted in, and also pass alongside the calcaneus, heel pain is frequent peripheral symptom in AS patients from enthesitis of inferior and posterior calcaneus [1,4,5].…”

“…Plain radiography is primarily and commonly used to evaluate chronic inflammatory and degenerative joint diseases [7]. There are, however, few examples of radiographic studies of the heel in AS [1,4,8,9]. Previous studies employing plain radiography of the heel in AS have used conventional film radiography and involved mostly asymptomatic heels so that comparable findings for painful heels are, to the best of our knowledge, not available [4,8,9].…”

“…There are, however, few examples of radiographic studies of the heel in AS [1,4,8,9]. Previous studies employing plain radiography of the heel in AS have used conventional film radiography and involved mostly asymptomatic heels so that comparable findings for painful heels are, to the best of our knowledge, not available [4,8,9]. The purpose of this study was to evaluate findings obtained by digital radiography (DR) of the heel in AS patients with current heel pain, comparing those of previous studies and to observe the relationships between radiologic abnormalities and disease duration, and any correlations between different abnormal findings.…”