{"id":1471,"date":"2017-02-17T15:53:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2017-02-17T16:08:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:08:28","slug":"ankylosing-spondylitis-new-insights-into-an-old-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/?p=1471","title":{"rendered":"Ankylosing Spondylitis: New Insights Into an old Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/DigitalEditions\/mm1702-february-2017\/html5\/index.html\">Ankylosing Spondylitis: New Insights Into an old Disease &#8211; MM1702<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease characterised by sacroiliitis and<br \/>\nextra-articular manifestations. Consider the diagnosis of AS in young patients with back pain and stiffness early<br \/>\nin the morning and after prolonged sitting. Appropriate initial investigations are a plain x-ray of the pelvis and<br \/>\nblood tests for HLA-B27, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level. MRI can identify early<br \/>\ninflammatory bony changes not seen on x-ray and is prudent in patients with a clinical history consistent with<br \/>\nAS but a normal x-ray appearance. The mainstay of treatment for patients with AS remains NSAIDs and<br \/>\nstretching exercises. Tumour necrosis factor inhibitors are effective therapy for patients who fail to respond to firstline<br \/>\ntreatments.<\/p>\n<p><em>Modern Medicine &#8211; February 2017<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ankylosing Spondylitis: New Insights Into an old Disease &#8211; MM1702 Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease characterised by sacroiliitis and extra-articular manifestations. Consider&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arthritis"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5REYo-nJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.modernmedia.co.za\/modernmedicine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}