Distinctive Features in Spondyloarthritis Between Women and Man in Moroccan Context: Disease Beginning, Clinical...

Axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) is a common group of chronic rheumatic inflammatory diseases, which usually affects the axial skeleton, and are more frequently observed in males than in females. Several differences have been brought up in the clinical presentation of axSpA, according to the patient's gender. In fact; axSpA severity in women tends to be moderate, leading then, to an underdiagnosis in this category of patients. While male axSpA patients seem to set forth more spinal destructions on radiographs.

As the main goal, our study aims to bring up the particularities of female axial spondyloarthritis, all the while comparing them with the male form.

This is a cross-sectional study carried out in the period lying between January 2012 and December 2017, at a single rheumatology department in Morocco. All patients with an axial spondyloarthritis meeting the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) classification criteria 2010, and who have been admitted in our department, during that period, were included. The data was recorded and analyzed using SPSS v20 univariate and bivariate analysis. A value of p <0.005 has been used to identify factors associated with axSpA in women.

A total of 277 patients were enrolled, of which 147 are female and 130 are male with a sex ratio of 1.1. Cervical stiffness was more common in men. On the other hand, women had more arthritis and enthesitis. However, no considerable divergences have been underscored between the two genders, neither in the prevalence of extra-articular manifestations, nor in disease activity BASDAI and BASFI. Men had more radiographic sacroiliitis compared to women (57.5% vs. 42.5%, p=0.01), more coxitis (66.7% vs. 33.3%, p = 0.0001). The Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that female gender was associated with a greater age at the diagnosis onset (IC: 1.053-1.103, OR=1.07, p=0.001) and arthritis (IC: 2.37-4.26, OR=2.3, p=0.004). While the male sex was associated with a young age of onset (CI: 4.50-19.52, OR = 9.3), coxitis (CI: 2.53-4.23, OR = 3.3) and smoking (CI: 15.667-900.18, OR = 118.7).

The comparison between male and female patients suffering from axial spondyloarthritis found many differences and similarities as well, in the disease expression. This study showed actually that women had the less severe form of spondyloarthritis.