Clinical Presentation of Spondyloathropathy in a Single Rheumatology Centre: A Cross-sectional Study

Objective: The aimof the study to describe the common presentation of spondyloathropathies patients in a single Rheumatology centre at Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun, State of Perak, Malaysia.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a single center rheumatology clinic between 2010 and 2013. A total of ninety-five spondyloarthropathy patients were randomly sampled and included in this study where the patients were diagnosed by rheumatologist based on the established diagnostic classification criteria. The demographic and clinical data of the selected patients were obtained from clinic records.

Results: A total of ninety-one spondyarthropathy patients were selected with male to female ratio were comparable and Malays ethnicity is more predominant (50%). The mean age was 42 years old with peak age ranging between 38-47 years (34.7%). Our findings described that low back pain is presented in all the AS patients (100%). In addition, peripheral arthritis is common in AS (26%), PsA (98.4%) and ReA (50%) patients, respectively. Meanwhile, psoriasis is common in PsA (100%) patients but not found to be presented in AS and ReA patients.

Conclusion: The commonest SpA encountered in this rheumatology centre are PsA and AS with female and male preponderance respectively. Clinical manifestations show heterogeneity among different SpA group as this may attributed to number of patients in each group. Peripheral arthritis is a common clinical presentation in both AS and PsA patients. Our results further described that psoriasis is the commonest clinical presentation in PsA patients but not in AS and ReA patients.