Ankylose This! Living with Ankylosing Spondylitis

Friday, March 03, 2006

Struck in the prime of life

There is an article by Tammy Laber "Struck in the prime of life" in the Arthritis supplement page TAS4 in today's Globe (Friday March 3, 2006).

A good overview, then it talks about biologics.

There is one sentence at the end of this paragraph that bothers me though


Often striking men in their prime, AS takes on average five years to diagnose. During that time the disease progresses; damage to the spine may become irreversible. Yet, AS can be confirmed with a blood test.

Err, no, I don't think so. Maybe just a science or an editing gap but I don't think this is right. HLA-B27 is present in most people with AS, but it's not diagnostic of AS (it's also present in people without AS).

Comments on this post

  • It took nine years to diagnose me, and I was the one who finally figured out that I needed to see a rheumatologist. By the time I saw him, I was well on my way to a poker spine. He looked at me and said, "I can tell by looking at you what's wrong with you, but I've never seen it in a black woman." He then explained that there was a blood test that would reveal whether I had a biological marker associated with AS, but he said he didn't expect me to have the marker because I was a black woman. I did turn out to be HLA-B27 positive.

    Later, I did some research in medical journals and found that it wasn't unusual for it to take as long as 12 years to diagnose, and there was very little research on the condition in women, or among people of African descent. (Of course, like most Americans, my heritage is mixed, and includes ethnic groups in whom the prevalence of the condition has been more heavily documented.

    Posted by Blogger Professor Kim (3/18/2006 8:44 AM)  

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