It is a chronic disease. This means it will probably last a long time. The number of new cases per year is estimated at nine per 100,000 population. These numbers would tell us that about 40-50 children in the Greater Cincinnati area will be diagnosed with JRA this year. The diagnosis is made by the presence of persistent arthritis for a minimum of six weeks in one or more joints.
Arthritis is defined as swelling or painful loss of motion in one or more joints.
The exception to this would be the child who has systemic JRA who may have high fever, rash, lymph node enlargement and other features with no joint involvement. Those children may go on to develop the arthritis at a later time. However, the systemic features, meaning those elsewhere in the body, usually come before the arthritis is present. There are several blood tests that help to evaluate your child or exclude other diseases. The tests do not make the diagnosis, but do help to categorize the disease.