Screening markers for rheumatoid arthritis in sickle cell disease in antananarivo madagascar

Introduction: Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease of hemoglobin, the most common in the world. Some sickle cell patients may have autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis. The objectives of this study are to seek the correlation between immunological and inflammatory factors and osteoarticular manifestations and to make the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in sickle cell anemia. Materials and method: This is a prospective descriptive study spanning the month of April 2019 to July 2019, recruiting sickle cell anemia patients over 15 years old who came for consultation at the sickle cell treatment center of the Joseph Ravoahangy Andrianavalona University Hospital Center (JRA UHC) during this period. The demographic parameters, the clinical signs of the patients were studied and the immunological markers (rheumatoid factor) and inflammatory markers were detected in their serum (rate of erythrocyte sedimentation, C-reactive Protein). The diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis was made according to the criteria of the ACR / European League against Rheumatism (ACR / EULAR). Results: We recruited 31 sickle cell anemia patients with a sex ratio of 0.8. Their age range was 15 to 43 years old. 45% had already chronic arthralgia predominantly in the large joints of the hand. Two patients with chronic arthralgia had elongated HSV. However, neither of the two patients with elevated rheumatoid factor had joint pain. 19.4% had a higher than normal CRP level. There was no significant relationship between the positivity of the parameters with the presence or absence of chronic arthralgia in our sickle cell patients. Conclusion: The associations of clinical and biological signs in relation to rheumatoid arthritis which must be monitored as this could predict the occurrence in the short and medium term of these diseases which could be mistaken asosteo-articular manifestations linked to sickle cell disease.