Differences in Clinical Presentation of Ankylosing Spondylitis in Men and Women

Background and Purpose: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is an inflammatory disease that mainly affects axial skeleton of the body, and its prevalence in men is 2 to 3 times more than that in women. The difference in clinical presentations of AS in men and women is indicative of potential effect of gender on severity of the disease. This study was conducted with the aim to investigate the effect of gender on severity of AS. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 115 patients with AS, comprising 88 men (76.5 %) and 27 women (23.4 %) were evaluated. Sampling was performed using non-random convenient method. The most important variables studied included clinical presentation, radiographic stage of sacroiliac involvement, and laboratory data extracted from patients&rsquo; files and recorded in questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS-16 software. Results: No significant difference was seen between men and women in age at diagnosis, entheses involvement (enthesitis), peripheral joint involvement, and laboratory data such as C-reactive protein (CRP), Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR), and hemoglobin. Inflammatory neck pain was more prevalent in men than in women (77.2% against 51.8%; P<0.05).Sacroiliac radiographic study revealed stage 1 involvement in 11.3% of men and 37% of women (P=0.009), and stage 4 in 27.2% of men and 3.7% of women (P