Complete heart block in ankylosing spondylitis.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic rheumatic disease of young men that affects mainly the axial skeleton and is associated with HLA-B27 in 90% of the cases. Incidence of cardiovascular involvement in AS ranges between 10%-30%; conduction disturbances have been described in 1%-9% of the patients with AS. The majority of the series show a relationship with longstanding disease. To our knowledge, this is the first report of complete heart block in early AS.