Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học General Psychiatry cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: Comparing the prevalence of rheumatic diseases in China with the rest of the world. | Available online http content 10 1 106 Editorial Comparing the prevalence of rheumatic diseases in China with the rest of the world David T Felson Clinical Epidemiology Research Training Unit 650 Albany Street Suite X-200 Boston MA 02118-2526 USA Corresponding author David T Felson jendez@ Published 25 February 2008 Arthritis Research Therapy 2008 10 106 doi ar2369 This article is online at http content 10 1 106 2008 BioMed Central Ltd See related research by Zeng et al. http content 10 1 R17 Abstract Geographic or ethnic differences in the occurrence of disease often provide insights into causes of disease and possible opportunities for disease prevention. Persons in China appear to have a consistently lower prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia than persons in the United States and Europe reasons for these prevalence differences might include genetic differences differences in environmental exposures or a combination of both. With increasing obesity gout is becoming endemic in China. Finally symptomatic knee osteoarthritis is extremely common in China and constitutes a major public health problem there. In the present issue of Arthritis Research and Therapy Zeng and colleagues comprehensively review studies evaluating the prevalence of rheumatic disease in China 1 . Their report suggests variations in the prevalence of symptomatic osteoarthritis throughout China consistent prevalences for ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis an absence of fibromyalgia and a temporal increase in the prevalence of gout. What should we make of all of these estimates and why are they important to us outside China Estimates of the prevalence of rheumatic disease provide information about the burden of disease and suggest a need for provision of health services. For knee osteoarthritis where the prevalence in China is high and knee replacements are not widely available 2 there .
