Symptoms of Adult Onset Stills Disease
How do patients with Adult Onset Stills Disease generally present?
Patients tend to be young adults (75% aged <35 years) who present with a prolonged course of nonspecific signs and symptoms. Patients aged up to 70 years have been reported. The most striking manifestations are severe arthralgias/arthritis, spiking high fevers, and transient rashes. A prodromal sore throat due to perichondritis of the cricothyroid cartilage can occur days to weeks before other symptoms in 70% of cases. These patients appear severely ill and have often received numerous courses of antibiotics for presumed infection, although cultures are negative. As many as 5% of patients being evaluated for “fever of unknown origin” may be diagnosed eventually with Still’s disease. A few patients have had similar episodes of this illness as children.
