Reiter's syndrome. Evaluation of preliminary criteria for definite disease.

Abstract

A retrospective evaluation of 83 patients with Reiter’s syndrome (RS) and 166 comparison arthritis patients was conducted in order to assess the preliminary criteria for definite RS. Data analysis was based on the statement that Reiter’s syndrome consists of an episode of peripheral arthritis of more than 1 month duration occurring in association with urethritis and/or cervicitis. During the initial episode of RS, 70 of the 83 RS patients satisfied the criteria, yielding a sensitivity of 84.3%. The extensive overlap of clinical manifestations of the various seronegative spondylarthropathy syndromes makes it difficult to define a specific disease within that group of disorders (1). The discovery that HLA-B27 is found in a high proportion of such patients has helped to focus on the interrelationships of these disorders (2). This report describes an effort to define “definite” Reiter’s syndrome by a retrospective evaluation of typical cases submitted from seven university-based arthritis centers. The investigation has been underway for a number of years, and selection of cases preceded knowledge of histocompatibility types. In a sense, the proposed criteria provide a clinical definition of a patient group which may subsequently be recognized by other markers.