Reiter's Syndrome: A Follow‐up Study

During the last war there was an epidemic of dysentery in Finland, on the Karelian Isthmus. Out of a total of about 150,000 cases, Reiter's syndrome developed in 350 (0.2%). A follow‐up study of 100 of these cases was made about twenty years later. The most frequent late changes were rheumatoid spondylitis (32%), chronic arthritis (18%), and iritis (7%). Occasional arthralgia without objective symptoms was also common. After termination of the first stage, 20 patients (20%) had become entirely asymptomatic. The disease resulted in permanent disability in 42 cases (42%). The importance of prostatitis, as a focus of infection in this disease, seems open to doubt. The control study was based on 100 men; examination of the prostate and roentgenography of the sacro‐iliac joints and lumbar spine were performed.