The most common cause of bilateral symmetrical polyarthritis in the small joints is rheumatoid arthritis. However, if seronegative arthritis is involved, it could be the case that other underlying causes need to be diagnosed. This is particularly important for those coming from or living in developing countries where infectious causes should always be considered. The case of a young Nepali woman is presented in this article. She was referred as a case of seronegative rheumatoid arthritis for DMARDs therapy but this was not the case due to her origin from Nepal and seronegativity for RF, Anti-ccp, and ANA as well as faint macular skin lesions over her face and upper extremities, which the patients are not aware of. Consequently, skin biopsy was carried out which subsequently confirmed that the infectious cause of her polyarthritis was leprosy.LEARNING POINTSBilateral symmetrical seronegative inflammatory arthritis of rheumatoid type is very common.However, when both RF and anti-ccp are negative, other possible secondary causes including infection should be considered, especially in patients from areas where disease is endemic.In this case lepromatous leprosy was the cause of the patient’s presumed rheumatoid arthritis and all her arthritis resolved after her leprosy had been treated.
Background: Autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARDs) are characterized by immune dysfunction and associated with an increased risk of infections, which were of significant concern during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Variable rates of COVID-19 incidence have been reported in patients with ARDs; however, the true effect of this infection on this patient population is still unclear. We, therefore, aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 prevalence among a multiethnic cohort of patients with ARDs in Qatar. Material and Methods: We used telephonic surveys to collect demographic and clinical information of patients with ARD in Qatar between April 1 and July 31, 2020, including any close contact with a COVID-19 case at home or work and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. An electronic medical records review was conducted to verify pertinent data collected through the surveys. Prevalence with 95% confidence interval (CI), Student's t-tests, and chi-square/Fisher's exact tests were used for univariate analyses, whereas multivariate logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with COVID-19. Results: The study included 700 patients with ARD (mean age, 43.2 ± 12.3 years), and 73% were female. Until July 2020, 75 (11%, 95% CI 9%–13%) patients had COVID-19. Factors associated with COVID-19 included being a man (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.56, 95% CI 1.35–4.88, p = 0.01) and having close contact with a COVID-19 case (aOR 27.89, 95% CI 14.85–52.38, p = 0.01). Disease severity and rheumatic medications had no significant association with the odds of contracting COVID-19. In the 86 patients with ARD having close contact, the frequency of hydroxychloroquine utilization was lower in patients who contracted COVID-19 than in those who did not (35% vs 72.5%, p = 0.01). Conclusions: In Qatar, patients with ARDs had an overall higher prevalence of COVID-19 than global estimates. Being male and having close contact with a COVID-19 case were strongly associated with COVID-19 as reported globally. The presence of comorbid conditions, disease-specific factors, and rheumatic medications had no significant effect on the risk of COVID-19 in our study suggesting alternative mechanisms to the increased prevalence.
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