[Familial form of rheumatoid nodulosis]

We report a familial form of rheumatoid nodulosis where the early lesions appeared in the first years of life in a young man and his son. The numerous papular and nodular skin lesions disclosed an ulcerative evolution leaving atrophic scars mainly near the limbs' joints. In both patients the evolution was characterized by the late onset of polyarthralgias and of a non-destructive seronegative polyarthritis; intra-osseous lesions were present in the metatarsal bones in the father. Rheumatoid nodulosis is a rare disease, sometimes considered as a benign variant of rheumatoid arthritis without destructive joint involvement. A serum rheumatoid factor is inconstantly present and the intra-osseous geodes have been shown to be rheumatoid nodules exhibiting the same histological structures of palisading granulomas as the subcutaneous nodules. The main symptom of the disease is the occurrence of multiple nodules followed by the delayed onset of a polyarthritis with a benign course without systemic involvement.