Do symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis resemble another disease?
Dr Anand Malaviya
Head of the Department of Medicine and Chief of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology Services,
All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi Consultant Rheumatologist, 'A&R Clinic'
Visiting Sr. Consultant, Rheumatologist, ISIC Superspeciality Hospital, New Delhi.
Head of the Department of Medicine and Chief of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology Services,
All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi Consultant Rheumatologist, 'A&R Clinic'
Visiting Sr. Consultant, Rheumatologist, ISIC Superspeciality Hospital, New Delhi.
Q: Is there any other disease whose clinical symptoms are the exact copy of rheumatoid arthiritis?
A:There are several diseases where the clinical features of arthritis resemble that of rheumatoid arthritis. However, the extra-articular features usually give away the diagnosis. These are often called mimics of rheumatoid and include: psoriatic arthritis, enteropathic arthritis (inflammatory bowel - disease related), arthritis related to systemic vasculitides (e.g. Wegeners granulomatosis), peripheral arthritis of some atypical spondyloarthritides, thyroid-disease related arthritis, arthritis related to infective endocarditis etc. Each one of them is quite easy to diagnose as all of them have characteristic extra-articular clinical features.