Su Minhui, Jiang Haixu, Liu Shengyan, Shen Pengfei, Zhou Dinghua, Zhu Keqiang, Huang Zixi, Li Chen, Li Meiling
Department of Rheumatology, Changzhou Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, Affiliated to Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu, China.
School of Chinese Materia, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2025 Jul 16;12:1580989. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1580989. eCollection 2025.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has potentially impacted the care of patients with rheumatic diseases, including Synovitis, Acne, Pustulosis, Hyperostosis, and Osteitis (SAPHO) syndrome. We investigates the effects on clinical characteristics, potential factors, and outcomes in SAPHO patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
SAPHO patients were recruited for this cross-sectional study from Fangshan Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. In total, 375 patients (mean age, 47.5 years, 72.53% females) were asked about demographic data, disease status, current treatments, and clinical manifestations during the epidemic, and potential relationships were analyzed.
Among 375 included patients, 329 were infected with coronavirus 2019. Compared with non-infected patients, infected ones were more likely to have higher disease activity ( = 0.006). However, Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor use was lower in detected COVID-19 cases than in non-infected cases in our cohort. Disease symptoms during COVID-19 were more commonly present in the non-JAK group than JAK groups, including rhinorrhea ( = 0.030), nasal congestion ( = 0.023), sore throat ( = 0.042), pneumonia ( = 0.044), headache ( = 0.023), and prevalence of palpitation ( = 0.015). In this study, 29 participants underwent tonsillectomy. Tonsillectomized patients showed a significantly higher prevalence of pneumonia than patients who did not undergo tonsillectomy ( = 0.009). The associated effect factors were displayed in the case of previous tonsillectomy using multivariate analysis and Firth's penalized likelihood. JAK inhibitor use ( = 0.025) and pneumonia ( = 0.011) were more likely to develop in patients with a history of tonsillectomy.
Disease activity was inversely correlated with JAK inhibitor use in SAPHO patients with COVID-19 during the pandemic. Thus, JAK antagonists have protective effects on SAPHO patients with infections and can significantly mitigate new clinical crown symptoms. However, there was a significant negative correlation between tonsillectomy and the prevalence of SAPHO with COVID-19, which demonstrates that tonsillectomy may be associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 adverse outcomes, especially in cases of taste disorders and pneumonia.
冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行可能对风湿性疾病患者的护理产生影响，包括滑膜炎、痤疮、脓疱病、骨肥厚和骨炎（SAPHO）综合征。我们调查了COVID-19大流行期间对SAPHO患者临床特征、潜在因素和结局的影响。
本横断面研究从北京中医药大学房山医院招募SAPHO患者。共询问了375例患者（平均年龄47.5岁，女性占72.53%）有关人口统计学数据、疾病状态、当前治疗以及疫情期间的临床表现，并分析了潜在关系。
在纳入的375例患者中，329例感染了2019冠状病毒。与未感染患者相比，感染患者疾病活动度更高的可能性更大（P = 0.
