Rheumatoid nodulosis: Report of a case with evidence of intraosseous rheumatoid granuloma

✍ Scribed by Dr. Antonio Morales-Piga; Angel Elena-Ibañez; Antonio C. Zea-Mendoza; Antonio Rocamora-Ripoll; Juan Beltrán-Gutiérrez

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 675 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780291015

✦ Synopsis

We describe a patient who had multiple subcutaneous rheumatoid nodules associated with episodes of acute intermittent arthritis and subchondral cystic lesions of the small bones of the hands and feet; this coadition is termed "rheumatoid nodulosis. " The patient had a cystic lesion in communication with the joint cavity, rheumatoid granulomas, and evidence of a central zone of necrosis opening toward the joint space. His case is compared with 8 previously reported cases, and possible etiologies of the subchondral bone cyst formation in rheumatoid nodulosis are discussed.

Subcutaneous rheumatoid nodules occur in 20-25% of patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (l), and histologically identical subcutaneous nodules are seen in other diseases (2). Ginsberg et a1 (3) were the first to report a symptom complex, which they termed "rheumatoid nodulosis," in which subcutaneous rheumatoid nodules are associated with episodes of acute intermittent arthritis and subchondral cystic lesions of the small bones of the hands and feet. There are few histopathologic descriptions of these cysts ( 4 3 , and they are not always well docu-From the Rheumatology Service and the Pathology Ser-