- Poster presentation
- Open Access
- Published:
The late atlantoaxial subluxation in a patient with juvenile idiopathic arthritis
Pediatric Rheumatology volume 12, Article number: P159 (2014)
Introduction
Atlantoaxial instability has been described as a manifestation of ankylosing spondylitis (juvenile and adult onset), reactive arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis; however, it has rarely been reported as an early manifestation of these disorders (1). Instability of the atlantoaxial joint may lead to impingement on the cord and brainstem. There may also be cephalad encroachment of the odontoid into the foramen magnum. Locke and colleagues studied the atlanto-odontoid distance in 200 normal children aged 3 to 15 years, but the age and sex were not significant factors (2-4).
Objectives
To increase awareness of the condition in the hope that earlier recognition of this disease may prevent further serious injury
Methods
We report the case of a 52-year-old woman who was diagnosed with JIA due to juvenile onset (at 16 years old), polyarthritis and a positive rheumatoid factor; the disease was persistent as active disease in adulthood.
Results
Our patient experienced persistent and worsening occipitocervical pain and signs of myelopathy after 36 years of disease and after one months of tumor necrosis factor α blockade. The atlantoaxial instability was appeared sudden in the night during sleep; she had awaked with dispneea and she had falled on his bed. She was intubated and the diagnosis was estabileshed after tomography, in which we had noticed along cervical spine abnormalities like superior subluxation, odontoid fracture with cord compression, bone erosion and pannus formation. She was treated surgically with a C1-2 posterior instrumented fusion with a good evolution.
Conclusion
The atlantoaxial subluxation is a potential fatal complication and could be present even after many years of evolution.
Disclosure of interest
None declared.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
About this article
Cite this article
Ramazan, AMM., Apostol, A. The late atlantoaxial subluxation in a patient with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Pediatr Rheumatol 12 (Suppl 1), P159 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1546-0096-12-S1-P159
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1546-0096-12-S1-P159
Keywords
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Cervical Spine
- Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis
- Spondylitis
- Bone Erosion