Articular Manifestations of Rheumatic Fever in Adults

Abstract

Adult patients (6) had a syndrome indistinguishable from childhood rheumatic fever, with few cardiac findings and an arthritis that had a characteristic pattern. The joint disease was abrupt in onset, rapidly additive and eventually symmetrical, with a lower-extremity, large-joint predominance and a profoundly symptomatic tenosynovitis. Emphasizing the benign prognosis associated with a lack of heart disease and a typical pattern of articular involvement, the sensitivity of the traditional diagnostic Jones'' criteria was reassessed. This syndrome in adults may be more properly termed poststreptococcal arthritis.