Juvenile Arthritis a Common Disorder in the Under 16s

Arthritis is often thought of as an old person’s disease. But the joint condition can also strike young people. Known as juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), the condition is the most common chronic rheumatologic disease in under 16s and, in fact, one of the most common chronic childhood diseases.

The disease itself is similar to the type that strikes in adulthood, an inflammation of the joints that can be crippling. Typically a patient will have pain in their joints and suffer from stiffness, particularly in the morning.

In Canada, where more than 61,5000 children have JIA, March is Childhood Arthritis Month with projects and programs aimed at helping those youngsters who have the condition. Many of the events organised for the month will involve social media, aiming to raise money for research into the causes of the disease and into new treatments.

What is known about JIA is that it is an autoimmune disorder where the body’s own immune system attacks the healthy tissues of the bone joints, causing inflammation. However, what causes the immune system to turn on itself is not yet known, although some theories suggest that it is genetic and then triggered by a virus.

Symptoms will typically include swelling and pain in the joints and stiffness, usually in the morning or after a sleep. The affected joints are usually in the hands, knees and feet, and children with JIA may suffer from a limp, fevers and skin rashes, and swelling in the lymph nodes in the neck. Other potential side effects are eye inflammation and problems with growth.

Like all autoimmune disorders, there are times when the sufferer has no symptoms and other occasions when their symptoms are particularly bad. Many children who have JIA eventually grow out of it and suffer no recurrence in adulthood.

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Juvenile Arthritis a Common Disorder in the Under 16s

Categories: common, Disorder, Juvenile arthritis

Have Scientists Made A Breakthrough In Child Arthritis?

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) affects the wellbeing of thousands of children worldwide, but scientists may have found a way to better classify, predict outcome of, and treat JIA. Thanks to a discovery of gene expression differences, your child’s doctor may be able to spare him or her from stronger, riskier treatments, if your child has a milder form of JIA, and target more aggressive treatment to children whose wellness is at risk of more severe arthritis.

According to Robert A. Colbert, MD, PhD, chief of the NIAMS Paediatric Translational Research Branch, the way doctors currently diagnose JIA is imprecise and based on the presence on six weeks worth of joint inflammation. Then, a few factors, such as the number of joints involved, and the presence of a fever and rash, help doctors to classify children into one of a handful of subtypes of JIA, making it easier to predict a patient’s most likely outcome and guide appropriate treatments. However, Colbert says, ‘recent research suggests there is more variability in JIA than the four or five major subtypes we currently recognize.’

For the study, which was published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, researchers led by Michael Barnes, PhD, of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre, used gene expression technology to look for differences in the children’s blood samples that corresponded with the different forms of JIA.

Colbert was another leader of this research programme, and he reported, ‘We analyzed gene expression patterns in blood cells and found that we could indeed distinguish the major subtypes of JIA. Many of the genes whose expression is altered function in the immune system. This means that not only is there immune activation, but it differs depending on the subtype of JIA that is present.’

He continued, ‘In paediatric rheumatology, we are at the early stages of improving our classification system for JIA. We expect that complementary studies designed to uncover the genetic differences that contribute to susceptibility will confirm the presence of several JIA subtypes, and add important information about what causes this group of diseases.’

He added that these findings could hopefully lead to the development of individually tailored treatments that maximise the benefits, while minimizing the risks: ‘We look forward to the day when we can use a combination of genetic and gene expression tests in the clinic to help us better diagnose and treat childhood arthritis.’

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Have Scientists Made A Breakthrough In Child Arthritis?

Categories: Juvenile arthritis, Research, treatment