Early diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis is very important
The diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis is based on the assessment of patient symptoms, physical examination, radiological findings and blood tests. The symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis include pain and morning stiffness of spine and sacral iliac joint, with or without accompanying inflammation in other joints, tendons and organs.
Early signs of spondylitis may be misleading, as the pain and stiffness in the spine can occur in many other states. It may take many years to ankylosing spondylitis was suspected.
Physical examination may show signs of inflammation and reduced range of motion. Especially it is noticeable from a backbone. The decrease of mobility in the lumbar spine, as well as in the neck. In addition, there is irritation of the ilio-sacral articulation, which is manifested by pain in the upper part of the buttocks. Go to the inflammation of the chest breaks respiratory function. Eye disease eye doctor revealed.
Following the time of diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis are X-ray data and the genetic markers in the blood (the gene HLA-27). In addition, there are other blood tests that help detect the presence of inflammation in the body, such as a blood test for ESR.
For the detection of renal damage associated analyzes of urine. This allows, first, to exclude renal disease, which can manifest pain in the lumbar spine, and secondly, to identify the associated renal damage in ankylosing spondylitis.
In addition, an evaluation of symptoms and signs of other spondyloarthropathies associated with conditions such as psoriasis, venereal disease or dysentery, Crohn's disease, etc.
A more sensitive method to detect inflammation in the ilio-sacral junction is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which allows some see signs sakroilita long before they are visible on radiographs.
The main difficulty in the diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis - is to recognize the disease early, which is increasingly dependent on a purely clinical analysis, rather than structural changes in the skeleton, from the doctor's experience and intuition.
