The antibiotic treatment of reactive arthritis patients derivedfrom the National registry of rheumatic disorders

Overview

This paper is composed of two parts. The first part informs about literature data on the antibiotictreatment of patients with reactive arthritis. The second part informs about the significance of theantibiotic treatment of patients with reactive arthritis from the National registry of rheumaticdisorders. Objective: To evaluate the relationship between starting antibiotic treatment and longtermtreatmentof patients with reactive arthritis fromthe National registry of rheumatic disorders.Methods: Patients entered into the registry between 1999 to 2001 were investigated after two years.The response was obtained from forty patients (50%) of the original group. Patients were thendivided into two groups – the first one, in which patients were treated with antibiotics from thebeginning of the disease and the second group, without antibiotic treatment. Total therapy and type(nonsteroidal antirheumatics, glucocorticoids, salazopyrine) were evaluated and the groups werecompared. Results: There were no significant differences between groups with respect to totaltherapy – 41.2% of patients in the group with ATB and 56.5% in the group without ATB were stilltreated after two years. Neither the treatment with nonsteroidal antirheumatic drugs (5.9% ofpatients in the group with ATB and 17.4% in the group without ATB) nor with salazopyrine (29.4%in the group with ATB and 34.8% in the group without ATB) reached the statistically significantdifference between groups. Statistically significant difference between groups were found inpatients treated with glucocorticoids (17.7% of patients in the group with ATB and 8.7% in the groupwithout ATB). However, because of the small numbers the interpretation of these findings must betaken with caution. Conclusion: These results are in accordance with most of the literature data.The antibiotic treatment has not significantly affected prognosis of patients with reactive arthritisfrom the National registry.

Key words:
reactive arthritis, antibiotic study, National registry, rheumatic disorders