Arthritis in Assiut University Children Hospital

Arthritis is defined as inflammation of the joint, Patients have symptoms of joint pain, stiffness, swelling, redness, warmth and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. Arthritis may be caused by transient synovitis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis ( JIA), reactive arthritis, viral arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; septic arthritis also occurs as a complication of bacteraemia in children. The overall incidence of arthritis and its causes are not well documented in children, and have even been reported to be unknown.Two population-based studies have described the incidence of different diagnoses of arthritis in childhood. Both of these studies were performed in Northern Europe and reported that transient synovitis is the most common cause.

The outcome and treatment of arthritis depend on its etiology. Children with transient synovitis do not need any surgical procedures and are treated symptomatically at home. However, children with septic arthritis require early diagnosis and hospital treatment, including surgical joint drainage and intravenous antibiotics so that septicaemia and joint damage can be avoided.

JIA is one of the more common chronic diseases of childhood with a prevalence of approximately 1 per 1,000 .

Criteria and classification Three groups have developed sets of criteria to classify children with arthritis: The American College of Rheumatology (ACR), The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), and The International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR).

• THE ILAR classification of JIA includes the following categories:
• systemic-onset JIA
• persistent or extended oligoarthritis
• Rheumatoid factor (RF)-positive polyarthritis
• RF-negative polyarthritis
• Psoriatic JIA
• Undifferentiated(disease does not meet criteria for any of the other subgroups, or it meets more than 1 criterion)