BACKGROUND Anesthesia management for patients with severe ankylosing spondylitis scheduled for total hip arthroplasty is challenging due to a potential difficult airway and difficult neuraxial block. We report 4 cases with ankylosing spondylitis successfully managed with a combination of lumbar plexus, sacral plexus and T12 paravertebral block. CASE PRESENTATION Four patients were scheduled f...

Twenty four patients with ankylosing spondylitis of 10 or more years' duration were assessed for evidence of cardiac disease. Seven patients (29%) had evidence of cardiac disease, including one patient with a pericardial effusion, three with conduction abnormalities, and two with aortic incompetence. Aortic incompetence in one patient was clinically silent and was detected only with Doppler ech...

The role of inflammation in vertebral manifestations of ankylosing spondylitis has been controversial [1-5]. Inflammation has been interpreted as the source of the edema recognized in the vertebral [611] centra of some individuals with ankylosing spondylitis [12,13]. However, most syndesmophytes appear at sites without apparent inflammation and not all inflammatory lesions lead to syndesmophyte...

Oxygen derived free radicals are considered to play an important part in the development of inflammation. A whole blood chemiluminescence assay was used to study N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine induced oxygen radical production in subjects with ankylosing spondylitis or previous yersinia arthritis. In luminol enhanced chemiluminescence, the subjects with previous yersinia arthritis show...

A 51 year old man with a 20 year history of ankylosing spondylitis and pronounced thoracic gibbus presented with two simultaneous complications of longstanding ankylosing spondylitis, upper lobe fibrobullous disease, and spinal pseudarthrosis. No neurological sequelae developed and treatment was conservative. Both these lesions mimic tuberculosis, and so it is important to determine them accura...

Spondyloarthropathies belong to a group of rheumatic diseases, in which inflammatory changes affect mainly the sacroiliac joints, spine, peripheral joints, tendon, ligaments and capsule attachments (entheses). This group includes 6 entities: ankylosing spondylitis, arthritis associated with inflammatory bowel disease, reactive arthritis, undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy, psoriatic arthritis...

Using an indirect immunoperoxidase technique we found the numbers of IgG-containing cells in the rectal lamina propria to be increased in patients with ankylosing spondylitis compared with controls, but not in patients with acute anterior uveitis or rheumatoid arthritis, or in the first-degree relatives of patients with ankylosing spondylitis. No differences between diagnostic groups were detec...

An analysis of the age at first presentation was undertaken in patients with ankylosing spondylitis and mechanical back pain seen at the London Hospital department of rheumatology between 1952 and 1983. There was a significant positive correlation with the calendar year of presentation in the patients with ankylosing spondylitis but a negative correlation in those with mechanical back pain. An ...

A 58 years old male with a long-standing history of HLA-B27 positive ankylosing spondylitis presented with increasing fatigue and dyspnea on exertion. He had left ventricular dysfunction and enlargement, flail right coronary leaflet of aortic valve with severe eccentric aortic insufficiency along with left ventricular non-compaction in echocardiography. The most common cardiac manifestations of...

A patient with a 10 year history of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and Bence Jones proteinuria, and a 44 year history of ankylosing spondylitis, developed a nephrotic syndrome secondary to renal amyloidosis. Clinically the amyloidosis was ascribed to Bence Jones proteinuria rather than to the burnt out ankylosing spondylitis. However, histochemical and immunofluorescence sta...