The timing of menarche in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

A study of the age of menarche in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) patients was undertaken to determine what factors affect the timing of menarche. There was a significant difference between the mean age of menarche for the 68 JRA patients and 46 controls (p = 0.015). No clear etiology for this difference was elucidated. Polyarticular-onset JRA patients had the oldest age of menarche, but this finding was of marginal statistical significance (p less than 0.05,pcorr less than 0.25). The multivariate model that included onset type, steroid use, and duration of disease weakly predicted age of menarche in the JRA group. This model suggests that, exclusive of height and weight parameters, duration of disease was the most important predictor of menarche in JRA.