Rheumatic manifestations of endocrine disease

Musculoskeletal complaints are a feature of several endocrine diseases. This review will update clinicians on their association, presentation, and treatment.

To update clinicians on the recent literature as it is related to pathophysiology, genetic, and clinical findings on the association of these diseases and musculoskeletal complaints.

Rheumatologists in the clinic are faced with different presentations of various musculoskeletal complaints every day. Every new patient encounter requires the differential diagnosis of these complaints. The first task is usually to decide with what disease in internal medicine these complaints are associated. The endocrinopathies are a group of illnesses that either present initially or exhibit sometime during the course of the disease as a variety of musculoskeletal complaints. Rheumatic manifestations may often be the initial presentation of an endocrine disorder. Each endocrine disorder may also have its own arthritic complaints, which can present as a definitive rheumatic disease such as calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate deposition disease or as a rheumatic symptom such as diffuse arthralgia. The rheumatologist as well as the primary care physician should be knowledgeable about the ways in which muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints are affected by diseases of the endocrine system.