[Eosinophilic arthritis and general review of the significance of articular eosinophilia]

Abstract

The authors report two cases of eosinophilic arthritis in allergic patients, which constitute the 9th and 10th reported cases. This condition consists of episodes of mildly painful, mildly incapacitating monoarthritis, essentially involving the knee, which last 2 to 15 days. These monoarthritis occur in young allergic patients; there are no allergic manifestations during the episode of arthritis and there is apparently no provoking allergen, but examination reveals intense dermographism. Apart from the presence of eosinophil polymorphonuclear cells in the synovial fluid, one can also find Charcot-Leyden crystals (one of the two cases in this study). The histological examination of the synovial membrane in one of these patients revealed an infiltration of eosinophil polymorphs. A raised serum IgE is always found. Including these two cases, the authors have found 11 out of 4277 specimens of joint fluid which show articular eosinophilia. The nine other cases consisted of one haemarthrosis, two post-arthrographic effusions, one filarial arthritis, one psoriatic rheumatism, one Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome and three cases of unclassifiable arthritis. Data from the literature show that articular eosinophilia is a rare phenomenon, that it does not constitute a simple local reflection of a blood hypereosinophilia and that it can consist of the cases found in this study.