Importance of Concomitant Fibromyalgia in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Lupus

Background: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic syndrom characterized by dysfunction of pain processing and regulation. It occurs relatively often in concomitance with the connective tissue diseases (CTD), in particular rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). FM may be involved in their final clinical manifestation and may have important consequencies for diagnosis and treatment. Objectives: To examine frequency of FM in the prime CTD, FM impact on their clinical manifestation and relationship to assessment of the clinical activity in regional, monocentric, cross- sectional, descriptive study. Methods: Study groups of 120 adult patients with RA, 91 with SLE, 30 with polymyositis/ dermatomyositis (PM/DM) and 28 with systemic sclerosis (SSc) were evaluated. Each patient was examined on the presence of concomitant FM according to ACR (American College of Rheumatology) classification criteria (1990). The following data were recorded: sociodemographic data, history including comorbidities, contemporary immunosupressive and analgesic therapy, laboratory parameters (serum inflammatory markers, relevant autoantibodies). Pain, fatigue and muskuloskeletal stiffness were assessed on horizontal 100 mm visual analogue scale. Patients' function status was evaluated using HAQ (Health..