Polyarticular and familial chondrocalcinosis

Abstract

From our series of 72 patients with articular chondrocalcinosis, 37 who presented polyarticular involvement are described. Twenty‐eight patients, including 19 aggregated within different family groups, are natives of the Chiloé island group. Members of 1 of the 6 families had unusually severe disease with deformities, and 1 had bony ankylosis of multiple joints. Pathologic findings in both the acute and the chronic stages of the joint disease are presented, particularly, some severe changes that have not been described previously.

Ectopic calcification among families in the Azores: Clinical and radiologic manifestations in families with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis and chondrocalcinosis

“…A hereditary form of "chondrocalcinosis articularis" was first reported by Zitnan and Sitaj (16) in 7 Czechoslovakian kindreds in 1963. Since then, many reports of familial aggregation have been reported in different ethnic groups, most of them showing an autosomal-dominant inheritance (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). In contrast, very few cases of familial DISH have been reported (24)(25)(26)(27), and to our knowledge, there is only one description of DISH in association with calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate (CPPD) crystals (8).…”

Letters

“…Spurious measurements of human serum IgA were made on human sera containing anti-goat IgM antibodies (7). When fluorescent rabbit antibody was used to detect specifically human PIC it was necessary to block RF containing sites with aggregated normal rabbit IgG, because, otherwise, any fluorescent rabbit IgG antibody could have been bound at these sites as antigen, regardless of its specificity as antibody (8).…”

“…However, the temporal relationship of arthritis to surgery, its similarity to the arthritis of Whipple's disease (6) and the lack of resemblance to other known types of joint disease suggest that the arthritis was causally related to the surgery. Further support for a relationship is gained from the observation of recurrent arthralgia in 10 of 150 patients with jejunoileostomy (7).…”

Primary amyloidosis resembling sicca syndrome

“…Secondary amyloidosis has been described in patients with sicca syndrome (4), but not, of course, in the absence of typical histopathology. Furthermore, hypergammaglobulinemia, nonorgan-specific autoantibodies such as rheumatoid factor, and antinuclear antibodies, often seen in sicca syndrome, were not found (1).…”