Assessment of children presenting with rheumatic complaints to a tertiary center in Turkey: differences in an Eastern Mediterranean population

Results From 01st December 2007 to 29th February 2008, a total of 241 children (M/F: 124/117; mean age 8.0 ± 4.0 years) were enrolled. Knee, ankle, hip and wrist were the most frequently involved joints. 61.8% had rheumatic diseases, and 38.2% had non-rheumatic diseases. The common causes constituted of familial Mediterranean fever (12.0%), other periodic fever syndromes (2.1%), HSP (8.7%) and other vasculitides (3.7%), JIA (10.0%), toxic synovitis (6.6%), rheumatic complaints during the course of an infectious disease (7.9%), growth pain (12.9%), orthopedic problems (18.7%); acute rheumatic fever (1.7%), malignancy (1.7%), SLE (1.2%), dermatomyositis (0.4%), overlap syndrome (0.4%) and fibromyalgia (0.8%) were rare. Conclusion This is the first study assessing the profile of rheumatic complaints in this part of the world. Our results have showed that auto-inflammatory diseases are strikingly high. Vasculitides and HSP are higher, whereas fibromyalgia is very rare compared to Western Europe. The frequency of ARF has decreased. from 15th Paediatric Rheumatology European Society (PreS) Congress London, UK. 14–17 September 2008