[A rheumatic disease register in clinical use].

A registry for the documentation of rheumatic diseases has been developed at the University of Düsseldorf. For 3 years more than 450 parameters for each patient have been documented, checked, and stored in a data bank. The registry has made a definite improvement in the diagnosis and long-term follow-up of rheumatic diseases. The use of special statistical procedures to study the frequency of various parameters in different diseases has allowed independent diagnostic criteria to be established.