[Juvenile chronic arthritis in children]

Juvenile chronic arthritis is a descriptive term for a group of illnesses pertaining to children characterized by nonsuppurative inflammation of joints having a chronic course. The term is rather new and comes from a meeting of scientists of the European Society of Rheumatologists (EULAR) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 1977 in Oslo. The cause of illness is unknown. There are numerous theories about the role of viruses, bacteria and other noxae which most often could not be established. The prevalence of the disease is about 1%, but the incidence is unknown. The clinical picture of the juvenile arthritis is very variable. Depending on the way of onset three subtypes can be differed: 1. systemic; 2. polyarticular; 3. mono (oligo) articular. These subtypes show not only which the clinical symptoms at the beginning of the disease are, but also, to a certain extent, what the development, course and the prognosis of the disease will be like.