Articles on Medical Diseases and Conditions

Collagen-vascular diseases are an ill-defined collection of syndromes that have certain points of similarity, among which the most striking are fibrinoid necrosis of collagenous tissue and involvement of various subdivisions of arteries by an inflammatory process. Some diseases emphasize one aspect and some the other. Because blood vessel inflammation and other abnormalities found in the […]

In these conditions arthritis is associated with inflammation that affects the spine and lumbosacral joints (ankylosing spondylitis), the urethra (Reiter’s syndrome), the skin (psoriasis), or the intestinal tract. These conditions were (and are) frequently referred to as “rheumatoid arthritis variants.” This name has been discarded by most rheumatologists because the diseases have relatively little in […]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic disease whose most prominent symptom is inflammation of joints. The small joints of the hands and feet, especially the proximal interphalangeal joints, are most frequently affected; involvement of larger joints of the extremities is somewhat less frequent, and occasionally nonextremity joints may be affected. Polyarticular involvement is much […]

The relationship between the rheumatoid diseases and diseases of the so-called collagen-vascular group is both close and uncertain. Many of the clinical symptoms found classically in one disease or syndrome may be found in another; the difference is on emphasis of certain aspects over others. This similarity extends to laboratory tests and makes it even […]