Increased prevalence of spondylarthropathies in parents of children with pauciarticular juvenile chronic arthritis, type 1.

Using a standard questionnaire, parents of 70 children with type 1 pauciarticular juvenile chronic arthritis were asked about inflammatory back-pain. When the answer was positive, the parents were seen by a rheumatologist who used the preliminary criteria of the European Spondylarthropathy Study Group to decide whether the parent had spondylarthropathy or not. A diagnosis of spondylarthropathy was established in 6 out of 138 parents (4%). This is considerably higher than the expected prevalence of spondylarthropathy, which should not exceed 0.25%. This finding sheds a new light on pauciarticular JCA, type 1, since no adult counterpart has as yet been described.