Cause of death in 79 patients with ankylosing spondylitis

The causes of death of 79 patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) diagnosed between 1952 and 1959 were investigated. The basic cause of death was a cardiovascular disease in 35.4% of the patients, AS in 29.1%, violent death in 10.1%, malignancy in 8.9%, gastrointestinal diseases in 6.3%, pulmonary tuberculosis in 2.5%, urogenital diseases in 2.5%, respiratory diseases in 3.8% and diabetes mellitus in 1.3%. Only one patient had a lymphoma and another patient chronic lymphatic leukaemia despite the X-ray therapy that almost every patient received. The immediate cause of death was uraemia caused by renal amyloidosis in 18% of the cases. In addition, uraemia from renal amyloidosis was part of the basic cause of death or a contributory factor in 3.8%. Thus, uraemia caused by renal amyloidosis in one way or another affected the cause of death in 21.5% of the cases. This figure is considerably higher than those given in earlier works.