Juvenile chronic arthritis profile in Greek children

Background: Juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA) is the commonest autoimmune rh eumatic disease in childhood and presents different clinical subtypes. Juve nile chronic arthritis is considered to be of a polygenic nature and its ge netic background is still under investigation. The clinical profile of JCA in the Greek population has not been studied completely. This study retrosp ectively analyzed the clinical and immunological features of JCA in Greek c hildren presented between 1989 and 1994. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-posi tive or -negative associations in the different clinical subtypes were also detected. The findings of this study were correlated with those reported f rom other populations. Methods and results: Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) anti-ds DNA and anti-extr actable nuclear antigen antibodies were estimated by immunofluorescent and ELISA assays. Human leukocyte antigen typing was performed by microlymphocy totoxicity, using immunobeads. The peak ages of JCA onset were between 2 an d 5 years and also between 9 and 12 years. There was a high female predomin ance in pauciarticular and polyarticular groups. The most common disease wa s pauciarticular (58.7%) followed by systemic (25%) arthritis. The incidenc e of eye involvement was 12.5% and presented only in the pauciarticular gro up. Overall, ANA positivity was 53.7%, increasing to 90% in pauciarticular cases associated with chronic uveitis. In the early onset (EOPA) pauciartic ular subtype, positive-HLA associations with alleles DR11 and DR8 were show n. In the late onset pauciarticular (LOPA) group only B27 allele was increa sed. Conclusions: The results of this retrospective study did not reveal major d ifferences between JCA in Greek children compared with other Caucasian seri es.