Rheumatic disease in Jamaica

The relative prevalence and clinical pattern of the major rheumatic diseases in the patient population of a teaching hospital in Jamaica were studied over the 3-year period 1974--7. The prevalence of systemic lupus erythematosus approached that of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). All grades of severity of RA were seen, and there was an unusually high proportion of females with RA. Rheumatic fever and exacerbations were relatively common, and in the absence of carditis differentiation from infective polyarthritis, especially gonococcal, was occasionally difficult.