Abstract:

Bone infarction is often found in patients with connective tissue disease due to long-term application of large amount of corticosteroids. For these patients, bone infarction more commonly occurs in hip joints rather than in knee joints. Aching joints and arthritis are routine presentations of connective tissue disease, which may easily result in the misdiagnosis of bone infarction in knee joints. Likewise, bone infarction may hinder the tracking of the development of connective tissue disease. The clinical manifestations, immunological characteristics and course of diagnosis and treatment of 3 cases of connective tissue disease complicated with bone infarction are retrospectively described in this paper. All are females, 2 of whom suffers from systemic lupus erythematosus, and the other Sjogren´s syndrome. All of them are treated with corticosteroids and immunodepressants in a long term, exhibit Raynaud´s phenomenon, and are complicated with multiple or single bone infarction. Management of anti-osteoporosis, blood circulation activation and bone metabolism promotion yields definite effect, and magnetic resonance imaging has a high value in diagnosis. A clinical comprehensive analysis on the basis of symptoms, laboratory results and imaging findings should be carried out to avoid the misdiagnosis.

Key words: connective tissue disease, arthritis, bone infarction