Cardiac Lesions in Reiter's Disease

Reiter's disease is a condition of unknown aetiology and in its generally recognized form is a triad consisting of urethritis, arthritis, and conjunctivitis. With increasing knowledge a number of characteristic though less constant features have been added to the clinical picture. However, many patients show only two of the cardinal features (commonly urethritis and arthritis), but the -subsequent course is similar to the fully developed -condition, and it is generally assumed that these are variants of a single disease entity. The condition may follow bacillary dysenteries, non-specific diarrhoea, or venereally acquired urethritis, and it most commonly affects young men. Its outstanding feature is acute arthritis, which usually involves several joints and may show a rapid evolution; it has thus some resemblance to rheumatic fever, and this had led investigators to search -for cardiac lesions.