[Clinical pictures of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis]

Abstract

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is a clinical syndrome of primary chronic arthritis in childhood. JRA is subdivided into three subtypes according to the clinical picture within six months of the onset of the disease. The clinical picture of systemic onset type usually starts with a characteristic spiking fever. Children with this onset type, sometimes have pleursy, percarditis, myocarditis, generalyzed lymphnode swelling, hepatosplenomegaly and rheumatoid rash, but arthritis may not appear within the first few months. Children with polyarticular onset type, joint manifestations are similar to that of the rheumatoid arthritis of the adult. In patients with the pauciarticular onset type, the prognosis of arthritis is relatively fair compared with the other two types, but the doctor must always be aware of the complication of chronic and recurrent uveitis which sometimes develop to glaucoma, without subjective signs.