[Chronic juvenile arthritis--difficult early diagnosis--differentiation of arthropathies in the patient case load of a juvenile arthritis hospital].

Among 2369 children who had been admitted and treated in the Rheumatic Children's Hospital Garmisch-Partenkirchen between 1952 and 1979 under the diagnosis "juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA)" or, "collagenosis", there were 244 patients (= 10.3%) for whom in the end a different diagnosis was set. The major part of these children suffered from arthritides where there was proof of a direct or an indirect connection with bacterial infections or where there existed a corresponding suspected diagnosis (altogether 162 out of these 244 children, = 66.4%). The remaining 82 cases differentiated into 26 further diagnoses with various frequencies. Our examinations show that six criteria are found relatively frequently in arthropathies not caused by juvenile chronic arthritis. These require special consideration in the differential diagnosis: oligoarthritic onset of the disease, high fever - especially septic intermittent fever, erythema nodosum, endomyocarditis, no (or only very slight) functional resp. morphological changes of the joints.