Publication

Abstract : {Background: Many children with sJIA may have a delayed onset of arthritis and so fail to fulfil the ILAR criteria for sJIA. This study was undertaken to determine whether the Yamaguchi criteria (for adult onset Still's disease) is useful in classification of children with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (sJIA) particularly in " pre-arthritic" , pure systemic, phase of the illness. A secondary objective was to determine the time delay between disease onset and onset of arthritis in our sJIA cohort.Methods: Retrospective chart review all patients with a diagnosis of systemic juvenile arthritis in our department from Jan 1, 2004 to Jan 1, 2010.Results: Twenty boys and eleven girls formed the study cohort. Thirteen patients were diagnosed with " suspected" sJIA due to typical systemic features but an absence of arthritis. Overall, the Yamaguchi criteria was fulfilled in a higher number of patients in the study (n=23) as compared to the ILAR criteria (n=18). Among the 13 " suspected" sJIA patients, 12 fulfilled the Yamaguchi criteria. Overall, either ILAR criteria or Yamaguchi criteria was fulfilled in 30 patients (96.8% of patients). The degree of association between the two criteria was poor (Phi coefficient = -0.352