Panorama of inflammatory arthropathies in rheumatologic consultations in Northern Togo

To determine the frequency and epidemiological profile of inflammatory arthropathies seen during rheumatologic consultations in Togo. This retrospective study examined the records of patients with inflammatory arthropathy seen at a rheumatologic consultation at Kara Teaching Hospital (Northern Togo) over a four-year period. Among the 2361 patients with rheumatic disorders, 152 (6.43%) had an inflammatory arthropathy: 57.24% were men and 42.76% women. The main causes observed were: chronic inflammatory rheumatism (CIR) and connective tissue disease (49.34%), infectious arthritis (26.32%), and gout (24.34%). The mean age of the 75 patients with CIR at the onset of the disease was 40 years and the average duration of evolution was 3.11 years. The main clinical forms of CIR were rheumatoid arthritis (11 cases), spondylarthropathies (20 cases within 11 cases of reactive arthritis), connective tissue diseases (4 cases), and unclassified CIR (31 cases). Nine patients with reactive arthritis were HIV positive. The infectious arthritis was caused by a banal germ in 31 cases and by Koch bacillus in nine other cases. Gout patients (35 men and 2 women) had a mean age of 43 years at the onset of the disease, and the mean duration of the disease was 4.1 years. Gout was monoarticular in 8 cases, oligoarticular in 19 cases and polyarticular in the other 10 cases. This study demonstrates the high incidence of chronic inflammatory rheumatism in Northern Togo.