Abstract
Spondyloarthritis represent a group of seronegative inflammatory joint diseases characterized by the involvement of spine, entheses, and peripheral joints.
This group comprises the following diseases: ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis, spondyloarthritis associated with inflammatory bowel disease (enteropathic arthritis), and undifferentiated spondyloarthritis.
The prevalence varies from 0.2 to 1.9%.
The disease generally starts between 20 and 40 years.
HLA-B27 is closely related to the susceptibility to spondyloarthritis. Also bacterial infections have been recognized as a possible etiological factor.
The primary site of the inflammatory process is the enthesis, giving rise to sacroiliitis, spondylitis, facet joint and costovertebral arthritis, and enthesitis.
Diagnosis of spondyloarthritis is primarily based on clinical manifestations but imaging modalities are essential to confirm the suspected diagnosis.
Conventional radiology is late in detecting lesions.
MRI of the sacroiliac joints and spine represent the gold standard technique to an early diagnosis.
In the last decade, the treatment of spondyloarthritis has improved dramatically, in particular due to tumor necrosis alpha blockers (A-TNF alpha).
In this way, early diagnosis is essential to achieve adequate control of the inflammatory lesions.
ASAS (Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society) has recently developed and validated new criteria for the spondyloarthritis that work better than previous criteria.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Prof. Giovanni Lapadula for his contribution in writing this chapter.
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D’Aprile, P., Tarantino, A. (2020). Clinical Assessment of Spondyloarthritis. In: MRI of the Rheumatic Spine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32996-9_1
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