A new study has found that the death rates for children in the U.S. with rheumatic diseases are lower than reported earlier. Those who were diagnosed with rheumatic diseases between 1992 and 2001,
Cleveland Clinic researchers analyzed data on 48,885 patients in the national Pediatric Rheumatology Disease Registry. A number that was significantly less than expected, There were just 110 deaths among these patients.
For children with systemic lupus erythematosus and dermatomyositis, but not for systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, the risk of death was notably greater. For those children with pain syndromes, the risk of death was markedly less.
According to the study published in the February issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism, while many of the deceased with pain syndromes died of non-natural causes, most of the deceased with inflammatory disease died of their disease or complications of that disease. “The improved treatment that was introduced in the 1990s could be one possible cause of the increased survival in the present study compared with previous studies,” said lead author Dr. Philip Hashkes. He also felt that continued follow-up of this cohort for mortality trends should be investigated in future studies.
