Objectives

To explore the relationship between occupational exposures and lateral and medial epicondylitis and the effect of epicondylitis on sickness absence in a population sample of working aged adults.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study of 9696 randomly selected adults aged 25-64 years involving a screening questionnaire and standardised physical examination. Age- and sex-specific prevalence rates of epicondylitis were estimated and associations with occupational risk factors explored.

Results

Among 6038 respondents, 636 (11%) reported elbow pain in the last week. 0.7% of those surveyed were diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis and 0.6% with medial epicondylitis. Lateral epicondylitis was associated with manual work (OR 4.0, 95% CI 1.9-8.4). In multivariate analyses, repetitive bending/straightening elbow > 1 hour day was independently associated with lateral (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.2-5.5) and medial epicondylitis (OR 5.1, 95% CI 1.8-14.3). 5% of adults with epicondylitis took sickness absence because of their elbow symptoms in the past 12 months (median 29 days).

Conclusions

Repetitive exposure to bending/straightening the elbow was a significant risk factor for medial and lateral epicondylitis. Epicondylitis is associated with prolonged sickness absence in 5% of affected working-aged adults.

Gout is the commonest cause of inflammatory arthritis among young men. A case of acute gout in a 39-year-old man is described. As part of his assessment, his cardiovascular risk factors were evaluated. He was found to have elevated body mass index, central obesity, hypertension, a family history of cardiovascular disease, and hypercholesterolemia. This case highlights the association between gout, hyperuricaemia and elevated cardiovascular risk. In young male patients, acute presentation with gout in primary care may provide the first opportunity for assessment of cardiovascular risk factors and primary prevention of ischaemic heart disease.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) is commonly complicated by metastatic infection or relapse after treatment. Objectives. The study aim was to determine the role of bacterial, host, and management factors in development of complicated SAB. Methods. A prospectively-conducted observational study gathered data on predisposition, management and outcome of 100 consecutive SAB cases. Antibiotic susceptibilities and genetic lineage of bacterial isolates were determined. Further clinical and microbiological data were gathered on two retrospective series from 1999–2000 (n = 57) and 2004 (n = 116). Results. In the prospective cases, 27% met our definition of complicated disease. Expressed as RR and 95% CI, complicated disease was associated with diabetes (1.58, 1.00–2.48), injecting-drug use (5.48, 0.88–33.49), community-onset of symptoms (1.4, 1.02–1.92), and symptom duration ≥48 hours prior to starting effective antibiotic therapy (2.10, 1.22–3.61). Uncomplicated disease was associated with the presence of a central line (0.69, 0.55–0.88) and prompt removal of a primary focus (0.71, 0.57–0.90). Neither methicillin resistance nor genetic lineage was associated with complicated disease, but methicillin resistance was associated with higher mortality. Conclusions. This study demonstrates that clinical rather than microbial factors are the major determinants of SAB outcome and underscores the importance of early treatment.

Introduction

Rheumatoid arthritis usually starts as a symmetrical polyarthritis, and its course is marked by flares and remissions. The aims of treatment are to relieve pain and swelling, and to improve function. In addition, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) may reduce disease progression.

Methods and outcomes

We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of drug treatments in people with rheumatoid arthritis who have not previously received any disease-modifying antirheumatic drug treatment? How do different drug treatments compare in people with rheumatoid arthritis who have either not responded to or are intolerant of first-line disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library and other important databases up to June 2005 (BMJ Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Results

We found 62 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.

Conclusions

In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: adalimumab, anakinra, antimalarial drugs, azathioprine, ciclosporin, corticosteroids, cyclophosphamide, etanercept, infliximab plus methotrexate, leflunomide, methotrexate (alone; or plus sulfasalazine plus hydroxychloroquine), oral gold, parenteral gold, penicillamine, sulfasalazine.

Key Points

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder that mainly affects the peripheral joints and surrounding tissue. It usually starts as a symmetrical polyarthritis, and its course is marked by flares and remissions.The aims of treatment are to relieve pain and swelling, and to improve function. In addition, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) may reduce disease progression.

The DMARD methotrexate is widely used as first-line treatment in people with rheumatoid arthritis because of consensus about its effectiveness in practice. Sulfasalazine and combined treatment with methotrexate and sulfasalazine are as effective as methotrexate in improving pain, joint swelling, and function in people with early rheumatoid arthritis who have not previously received DMARDs. Antimalarials may improve symptoms and function in DMARD-naïve people, and are reasonably well tolerated, but radiological evidence of erosion is more marked with antimalarials than with sulfasalazine.

There is a variety of DMARDs available for second-line treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and we found no clear evidence that one is superior. Methotrexate, sulfasalazine, penicillamine , and leflunomide cause similar improvements in symptoms and function when given to people as second-line DMARD treatment, although methotrexate causes fewer adverse effects.The combination of methotrexate plus sulfasalazine plus hydroxychloroquine is more effective in reducing measures of disease activity in people receiving second-line treatment than any of the drugs used alone. Adding the cytokine inhibitors infliximab or etanercept to methotrexate is more effective than using methotrexate alone.Although antimalarials and oral gold seem to improve clinical disease activity when given as second-line treatment, they are not as effective as methotrexate or sulfasalazine. Although parenteral gold is more effective than oral gold, it leads to higher levels of toxicity than most of the other commonly used DMARDs. Ciclosporin offers short-term control of rheumatoid arthritis when used as second-line treatment, but is associated with nephrotoxicity.We don′t know whether cyclophosphamide is as effective as other DMARDs for second-line treatment.Cytokine inhibitors may offer an alternative to traditional DMARDs for second line treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, but more research is needed. Etanercept may be as effective as methotrexate in improving symptoms, function, and radiological evidence of progression, but more evidence for its effect is needed Azathioprine is less effective and is less well tolerated than methotrexate.We don't know whether anakinra or adalimumab are as effective as other DMARDs for second-line treatment.Although widely used for the initial short-term relief of clinical disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis, we don't know how corticosteroids compare with other drugs for first or second-line treatment.