Primary biliary cirrhosis associated with rheumatoid arthritis
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Date
2007-08-17
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Abstract
Primary biliary cirrhosis(PBC) is a slowly progressive autoimmune disease of the liver
which mainly affects women aged between 35 and 45 years.Prolonged liver inflammation can
cause scarring, leading to cirrhosis. Although 50 to 60 percent of patients are asymptomatic at
diagnosis, they will develop symptoms later. PBC can be associated with arthralgia and other
non-hepatic autoimmune diseases, such as Sjögren’s syndrome, sicca syndrome, thyroiditis and
scleroderma. PBC and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been suggested to coexist in 1.8 to 5.6% of
patients with PBC, but data supporting this association are scarce. We report two cases of such an
association and discuss how to improve threapy.
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Keywords
methotrexate, primary biliary cirrhosis, rheumatoid arthritis, ursodeoxycholic acid