[Clinical manifestations of juvenile chronic arthritis (author's transl)]

The most outstanding clinical, laboratory and evolutive features of 119 patients with juvenile chronic arthritis were studied. According to the onset of the disease, these patients have bee divided into three subtypes, following the criteria set-up by the EULAR for the diagnosis and classification of patients with juvenile chronic arthritis. Among the 119 patients studied, 29.4% had a systemic onset, 37.8% a polyarticular onset and 32.7% a pauciarticular onset. The relationship between female and male was 0.8/1 in he group with systemic onset, 4/1 in the group with polyarticular onset and 1.1/1 in the group with pauciarticular onset. The patients with systemic onset seem to constitute a homogeneous clinical group. The group with polyarticular onset is made up of two subtypes of different evolutive seriousness, one seropositive and another seronegative. In the pauciarticular group, two subtypes are present: one presenting with chronic iridocyclitis and another with sacroilitis (some in this subtype shall develop subsequently ankylosing spondylitis), leaving aside a non-homogeneous group of patients unable to be classified at the present time.