ankylosing spondylitis in iran; late diagnosis and its causes

conclusions: in this study, delay in diagnosis was similar to other studies. educating physicians to careful history taking especially in the case of ibp, non-musculoskeletal symptoms such as uveitis and precise physical examination are important in early diagnosis. patients and methods: sixty patients, (53 males, 7 females) with a diagnosis of as according to the modified new york criteria were recruited. diagnosis delay was defined as the interval between a patient’s first spondyloarthritic symptoms [inflammatory back pain (ibp), inflammatory arthritis, enthesopathy and uveitis] and a correct diagnosis of as. results: the average age of patients at diagnosis of as was 36.4 ± 4.5 years and the average of delay in diagnosis was 6.2 ± 3.5 years. the most common diagnosis at the first visit was disc herniation (68.3%). delay in diagnosis of human leukocyte antigen (hla-b27) positive and negative patients were 4.6 ± 2.2 years and 10.1 ± 3.2 years, respectively (p = 0.0001). diagnosis delay in patients with morning stiffness and ibp were significantly shorter than that of patients without these symptoms (p = 0.0001 and p = 0.001, respectively). patients with uveitis had the shortest diagnosis delay (p = 0.02). the bath ankylosing spondylitis disease activity index (basdai) was not significantly different in early (< 3years) and late (> 3years) diagnosis (3.3 ± 0.9 and 3.6 ± 0.7, respectively) (p = 0.18), but the both ankylosing spondylitis functional index (basfi) was significantly different between them (3.3 ± 1.0 and 4.1 ± 0.7 respectively) (p = 0.001). background: ankylosing spondylitis (as) is a chronic destructive and inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton manifested by back pain and progressive stiffness of the spine. objectives: the aim of the present cross-sectional study was to evaluate and identify factors leading to delayed diagnosis of as in iranian patients.