Follow up study of juvenile chronic polyarthritis with particular reference to histocompatibility antigen W.27

Abstract

As the longterm followup of children with chronic polyarthritis suggested that this is not a homogeneous group, tissue typing was performed on 46 patients whose duration of disease was sufficiently long for the pattern to have become established. Six of the 7 patients whose illness had begun as juvenile chronic polyarthritis and who had progressed to ankylosing spondylitis had W.27, as did 8 patients with sacroiliitis of ankylosing type. Acute iritis had occurred only in those with sacroiliitis; 14 of the 15 with sacroiliitis were male. Four of 20 patients with juvenile chronic polyarthritis without sacroiliitis also had W.27. By contrast, none of the 11 patients who were seropositive and had a pattern of illness resembling adult rheumatoid arthritis were of this tissue type.