An analysis of age of onset in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis was performed in the last 300 children seen in our clinic. There was a peak age of onset in girls at 1 to 3 years. Distribution of age of onset in boys was bimodal with the first peak at 2 years of age and the second at 9 years. There was no accentuation of frequency in either sex in the 10- to 14-year age group. The distribution of age of onset was bimodal in both monarticular and polyarticular onset of disease, but no particular modal age of onset was seen with systemic onset of disease. It is possible that these data reflect that JRA is not a homogenous disease, or that there are age-sex related differences in host susceptibility or pathogenic agents.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Mucha-Habermann disease in children -- the association with rheumatic diseases.

Two children are described who developed Mucha-Habermann disease as infants. One boy had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that ran a progressive course over 10 years, although his skin disease responded to a low dose of corticosteroids. One girl had polyarthritis associated with onset of her rash but both resolved over several years without treatment. She has since developed scleroderma followed by a reappearance of her skin lesions.

Arthritis, Juvenile↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The clinical progression of apparent juvenile rheumatoid arthritis to systemic lupus erythematosus.

Ten patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) developed clinical manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in 2 1/2 to 21 yr. At onset there was little to distinguish these patients from other children with JRA. Chronic arthritis developed in all and was not different from that seen in JRA. Onset of SLE followed a flare of arthritis in 8 patients, development of serositis in 5, and fever and rash in 5. LE cells and elevated DNA-binding were found in all patients, and glomerulonephritis was demonstrated in the 6 patients on whom renal biopsies were done. This group of patients may represent an important diagnostic subset of children with JRA or SLE.

Adolescent↗