2024 Volume 36 Issue 4 Pages 251-258
Reactive arthritis（ReA）is a sterile arthritis occurring in a genetically predisposed individual, secondary to an extra-articular infection, usually of the gastrointestinal or genitourinary tract. Sterile arthritis associated with tonsillitis by streptococcal infection, extraarticular tuberculosis and intravesical instillation of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin（iBCG）therapy used for bladder cancer also could be included in ReA considering the pathogenic mechanism. In 1999, ReA international workshop suggested that ReA was related to HLA-B27 and associated with spondyloarthritis symptoms, and was a sterile arthritis occurring secondary to an extra-articular infection, usually limited of the gastrointestinal or genitourinary or a part of respiratory tract. Moreover, it was also suggested that except septic arthritis, sterile arthritis occurring after other infections should be called as infection-related arthritis. However, we often conventionally use “ReA” in infection-related arthritis patients from the point of view of pathogenic mechanism.
In this section, the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of ReA are reviewed.
