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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Ethnic heterogeneity of juvenile arthritis in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) related to a high human leukocyte antigen B27 frequency
Sargylana Boeskorova, Marina Afonskaya, Vera Argunova, Polina Sleptsova, Liudmila Leonteva, Tatiana Burtseva, Mikhail Mikhailovich Kostik
Sargylana Boeskorova, Tatiana Burtseva, Department of Pediatry and Pediatric Surgery, North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov, Medical Institute, Yakutsk 677000, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia
Sargylana Boeskorova, Marina Afonskaya, Vera Argunova, Polina Sleptsova, Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Republican Hospital No. 1 –National Center of Medicine Named After M.E. Nikolaev, Yakutsk 677019, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia
Liudmila Leonteva, Department of Rheumatology, Yakut Science Center for Complex Medical Problems, Yakutsk 677000, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia
Liudmila Leonteva, Department of Hospital Therapy, Occupational Diseases and Clinical Pharmacology, North-Eastern Federal University Named After M.K. Ammosov, Medical Institute, Yakutsk 677000, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia
Tatiana Burtseva, Department of The Children Heath Monitoring and Environmental Research, Yakut Science Center of The Complex Medical Problems, Yakutsk 677000, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia
Mikhail Mikhailovich Kostik, Department of Hospital Pediatry, Saint-Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, Saint-Petersburg 194100, Russia
Author contributions: Kostik MM and Burtseva TE contributed to conceptualization, writing review and editing; Kostik MM and Boeskorova SG contributed to methodology; Argunova VM contributed to software, resources, and data curation; Boeskorova SG, Afonskaya MV, Sleptsova PA and Leonteva L contributed to validation; Boeskorova SG and Afonskaya MV contributed to formal analysis; Argunova VM contributed to investigation and visualization; Kostik MM and Burtseva TE contributed to writing, original draft preparation, funding, supervision, and project administration; all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The protocol of the study was approved by the local Biomedical Ethic Committee of the Yakut Science Center for Complex Medical Problems (54 from 12.10.2021).
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:
https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author: Mikhail Mikhailovich Kostik, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Hospital Pediatry, Saint-Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, Lytovskaya 2, Saint-Petersburg 194100, Russia.
kost-mikhail@yandex.ru
Received: September 29, 2024
Revised: January 26, 2025
Accepted: February 10, 2025
Published online: June 9, 2025
Processing time: 169 Days and 18.2 Hours
BACKGROUND
Prevalence of the main rheumatic diseases in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) [RS(Y)], one of the regions of the Russian Federation, differs from the other regions of the Russian Federation due to its ethnic and geographic features. Knowledge regarding the prevalence and structure of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) allows us to shape the work of the pediatric rheumatology service in the region correctly, and optimize the healthcare system and the need for medications.
AIM
To describe the epidemiological, demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics of children with JIA in the RS(Y) and evaluate the main outcomes.
METHODS
This retrospective cohort study assessed all the data from the medical histories of the patients (n = 225) diagnosed with JIA (2016-2023) in the Cardiorheumatology Department of the M.E. Nikolaev National Center of Medicine. Pearson's χ² test, Fisher's exact test, Mann–Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for statistical analyses.
RESULTS
The ethnic prevalence of JIA is higher in Sakha than in Russian children at 110.1 per 100000 children and 69.4 per 100000 children, respectively. The prevalence of JIA among boys and girls in Sakha was similar, unlike in Russians, where the number of girls predominated. The JIA categories were as follows: (1) Systemic arthritis: 3.5%; (2) Oligoarthritis (persistent and extended): 33.8%; (3) Rheumatoid factor (RF) (+) polyarthritis: 0.9%; (4) RF (-) polyarthritis: 14.7%; (5) Enthesitis-related arthritis (ERA): 44%; and (6) Psoriatic arthritis: 3.1%. Prevalence of the ERA category was 4.4 times higher in Sakha children, but the prevalence of systemic arthritis was 2.9 times lower compared to Russians (P = 0.0005). The frequency of uveitis was 10.2%, and the frequency of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B27 was 39.6% in JIA children. Biologic treatment was received by 40.4% of JIA children and 45.3% achieved remission.
CONCLUSION
Higher JIA prevalence, male and ERA predominance, related to a higher frequency of HLA B27 are typical in RS(Y). These data might improve the pediatric rheumatology health service.
Core Tip: The prevalence of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and other rheumatic diseases in Sakha children is higher than in White/Caucasians, living in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). JIA in Sakha children has a unique course related to male prevalence, high frequency of human leukocyte antigen B27 in healthy people and in patients with arthritis, and a high frequency of enthesitis-related arthritis.
