Awareness, perspectives and satisfaction levels among patients with psoriatic arthritis: a multicentric cross-sectional survey.

Perception of the disease and its management impacts patients with Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) to a great degree. Studies examining patients' viewpoints and perception of their disease and its management are scarce. This multicentric cross-sectional survey was undertaken to understand the perspectives of patients with PsA. A survey questionnaire with items on demographics, awareness about their disease, treatment, physical therapy, quality of life and satisfaction with the care received was designed. After internal and external validation, a pilot survey was conducted, and the questionnaire was finalized. The final survey (with translations in local languages) was carried out at 17 centres across India. There were 262 respondents (56% males) with mean age of 45.14 ± 12.89 years. In 40%, the time lag between onset of symptoms and medical assessment for it was more than a year. In most of the patients, the diagnosis of PsA was made by a rheumatologist. Over 83% of patients were consulting their rheumatologist periodically as advised and fully compliant with the treatment. Lack of time and cost of therapy were the most common reasons for non-adherence to therapy. Eighty-eight patients (34%) were not fully satisfied with their current treatment. Over two-third of patients had never seen a physiotherapist due to barriers including a lack of time, pain, and fatigue. The daily activities and employment status were affected in nearly 50% of patients with PsA. The current survey has identified a gap in patients' awareness levels and helps healthcare providers in understanding the varied perceptions of patients with PsA. Addressing these issues in a systematic manner would potentially improve the treatment approaches, outcomes, and patient satisfaction levels.

Abdominal Vascular Injury During Posterior Lumbar Discectomy, Experience from Three Cases and Review of Literature.

STUDY DESIGN: Case series and review of literature. OBJECTIVE: To report three cases of vascular injury during posterior lumbar disc surgery, two of these occurred during open discectomy, and one during an endoscopic surgery. Aim is to highlight importance of early diagnosis and prompt steps taken to prevent morbidity and mortality. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Vascular injury during lumbar discectomy is rare injury. Also no case has been reported so far occurring during an endoscopic discectomy. METHODS: Three patients were treated for lumbar intervertebral disc prolapse, two had undergone open posterior discectomy while the third patient underwent endoscopic discectomy and all of them were diagnosed to have suffered an abdominal vascular injury. RESULTS: In two cases pseudo-aneurysm was found while third case was diagnosed as an arterio-venous fistula. All the three cases were managed with endovascular stenting and followed for a minimum period of 2 years. No further complications were detected. CONCLUSION: Vascular injury during a disc surgery is difficult to diagnose due to the rarity of occurrence and subtle signs which need to be recognized to start early management. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 5.

Pediatric conjoint Hoffa's fracture: An uncommon injury and review of literature.

Coronal plane fracture of femoral condyles was first elaborated by Hoffa. These are difficult articular injuries, often described in adult skeleton and very rarely in pediatric age group. Conjoint variety with intact bone bridge between condyles in intercondylar notch area is rare. We report a conjoint variety of bicondylar Hoffa's fracture in a child which was surgically treated using headless compression screws along with a brief review of literature about fracture entity and complexities associated with it.

Isolated tubercular osteomyelitis of acromion: A case report and review of literature.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease of public health interest, infecting one-third of the world population. Up to 3% of all Tubercular cases have musculoskeletal involvement with less than 1% involving the scapular. To the best of our knowledge, we present the third case of acromion involvement in reported literature. An adolescent female with complains of shoulder pain with no restriction of movements, no local symptoms, no fever, no history of tuberculosis was being treated on analgesics for three months at a primary health centre. With a provisional diagnosis of Chondroblastoma, surgical exploration was done, but pus was drained. It was realized in retrospect that tuberculosis needs to be considered as a differential diagnosis for any undefined bony pain, however uncommon the site of involvement may be, especially in Indian subcontinent.

Refractory rheumatoid vasculitis.

Systemic rheumatoid vasculitis (SRV) can develop in rheumatoid arthritis of long duration and high disease activity. It most commonly manifests as cutaneous vasculitis and mononeuritis multiplex. This can involve any organ of the body and carries very high mortality. We report a case of a young male who had rheumatoid arthritis for the past 15 years and became refractory to standard drugs and anti-TNF agents. He subsequently developed SRV, which started as mononeuritis multiplex. Disease progressed to result in gangrene of hands and feet despite receiving intravenous cyclophosphamide. Intravenous immunoglobulin and rituximab also could not provide any response. Prolonged ICU stay resulted in critical care neuromyopathy. Central nervous system vasculitis developed even after repeated infusions of intravenous immunoglobulins and at last he died of complications. In this case report, we have presented rare and chronic protracted presentation of rheumatoid vasculitis involving skin, nerves, brain and testis, which was refractory to the recommended therapies.

Chronic melioidosis presenting with multiple abscesses.

Melioidosis is common in Australia and Southeast Asia and is increasingly recognized in India. It presents in various forms which are difficult to identify and often mimics suppurative infections, tuberculosis, fungal infections, malignancy and systemic rheumatic diseases. Presentation may vary from local disease to disseminated abscesses, pneumonia and sepsis. Disease is common and severe in diabetics. We describe a case of diabetic man presenting with fever, septic shock, peri-articular nodules, lung opacities and multiple abscesses in muscles for the past 3 months remaining undiagnosed. Autoimmune conditions were ruled out and infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei was suspected. Burkholderia pseudomallei was isolated from blood cultures, confirming the diagnosis. Prolonged treatment with intravenous ceftazidime followed by oral cotrimoxazole led to complete recovery. Awareness of this infection is required by clinicians and microbiologists unfamiliar with the condition to diagnose the disease early to prevent mortality.

Polyarteritis nodosa with a chronic relapsing course.

Polyarteritis nodosa is a medium artery vasculitis that can cause fatal complications. It commonly follows an acute monophasic course that may remit after treatment or cause serious morbidity or death. A 24-year-old patient described here had many vasculitic episodes in the past 16 years causing infarction of different organs. The last episode was most serious which caused mononeuritis multiplex, digital gangrene, bowel gangrene and subsequent perforations. There was strong clinical suspicion of this disease right from the beginning. However, diagnosis could not be proved objectively with multiple angiographies and biopsies till the end when CT angiography of abdomen revealed aneurysms in mesenteric vessels. He survived serious complications of disease and even surgery for bowel perforations but died of cerebellar abscess resulting from immunosuppressive therapy. Unfortunately he did not tolerate intravenous cyclophosphamide. Corticosteroid pulses and intravenous immunoglobulin also could not prevent the progression of digital gangrene and bowel infarction.

Arthroscopic-assisted fixation of Hoffa fracture: A case report and description of technique.

Medial condyle Hoffa fractures are intra articular injuries, which require prompt anatomical reduction and internal fixation. Arthroscopy-guided fixation of these fractures has also been advocated; the advantages include avoidance of soft tissue dissection, fast recovery and mobilization. We describe a case of a 28-year-old male patient presenting with a 10-day-old medial condylar Hoffa fracture. Skin condition prevented from conventional open reduction and internal fixation; hence, taking note of the urgency of fixation of an intraarticular fracture, arthroscopic-assisted minimally invasive approach was performed with good outcome.

Tuberculosis of wrist joint in an 8-year-old child presenting as hamate osteitis: A rare case report.

Tuberculosis rarely involves wrist joint and is usually diagnosed in arthritic stage. We, hereby, describe a case of TB afflicting wrist joint in a young child. To our knowledge, similar presentation has never been reported. Diagnostic dilemma became more pronounced as the radiograph presented with features of osteitis of hamate instead of a classical phemister's triad, as is usually expected.