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Enthesitis-Related Arthritis: Time to Re-define?

  • Pediatric Rheumatology (S Ozen, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common rheumatic disease in childhood. Enthesitis-related arthritis (ERA) is one of the seven JIA subtypes classified by the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR). Due to inclusion and exclusion criteria, a pitfall of the ERA category is that it does not include all subsets of juvenile spondyloarthropathy, with many children ending up in the undifferentiated category. The ERA nomenclature also does not have a method for distinguishing between axial and peripheral disease, two phenotypes which vary in presentation and treatment requirements. This distinction is very important given the overall poor prognosis seen in ERA patients, specifically in those with axial involvement. Since axial involvement is more common and presents earlier than previously thought in ERA, the pediatric rheumatology community should develop more accurate and sensitive classification criteria based on disease course to assist in improving timely diagnosis and appropriate management.

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Conflict of Interest

Angela R. Bryan declares no conflict of interest.

C. Egla Rabinovich declares the receipt of research grants from UCB, Hoffman LaRoche, and AbbieVie, outside the submitted work.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Duke University Medical Center, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, 27710, USA

    Angela R. Bryan & C. Egla Rabinovich

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  1. Angela R. Bryan
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  2. C. Egla Rabinovich
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Correspondence to C. Egla Rabinovich.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Pediatric Rheumatology

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Bryan, A.R., Rabinovich, C.E. Enthesitis-Related Arthritis: Time to Re-define?. Curr Rheumatol Rep 16, 466 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-014-0466-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-014-0466-z

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