Clinical features of elderly-onset Adult-onset Still's disease.

Objectives: To clarify the characteristics of patients with elderly-onset Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD). Methods: Patients were classified into elderly-onset (>60 years: 47 patients) and younger-onset (>60 years: 95 patients) groups according to their age at diagnosis of AOSD. Clinical features, treatments, and prognosis were compared between the elderly-onset and younger-onset groups. Results: In the elderly-onset group, compared with the younger-onset group, typical skin rashes were less frequent (21.3% vs 58.9%, respectively; p<.0001), whereas pleuritis (27.7% vs 7.4%, respectively; p=.0011) and disseminated intravascular coagulation (19.1% vs 2.1%, respectively; p=.0004) were more frequent, and serum ferritin levels were higher (median 12,700 ng/ml vs 2526 ng/ml, respectively; p<.0001). Overall survival and AOSD-related survival were reduced (p=.0006 and p=.0023, respectively) and drug-free remission was less frequent (p=.0035) in the elderly-onset group compared with the younger-onset group. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that elderly-onset AOSD patients had several characteristics that differed from younger-onset AOSD patients, including less typical skin lesions, more AOSD-related complications, higher ferritin levels, and poorer prognoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]