Approach to Inflammatory Arthritis for Primary Care Physicians
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58931/cpct.2025.3354Abstract
Inflammatory arthritis is a common condition encountered in primary care clinics but its diagnosis can be challenging because of the many conditions that can present with similar clinical features. As the differential diagnosis is broad, clinicians need to consider the most common entities and adopt a structured approach to establish the most likely diagnosis to help with initiating appropriate investigations and treatment.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), observed in 0.9% of the population, and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) affecting 0.5–2%, are the most common types of inflammatory arthritis. Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) occurs at approximately half the frequency, with a prevalence of approximately 0.5% in the general population.
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