Reiter’s syndrome and reactive arthritis

Abstract Reiter’s syndrome is classically defined as the triad of nongonococcal urethritis, conjunctivitis, and arthritis, the latter usually an asymmetric oligoarthritis predominantly involving lower extremity joints (Bauer and Engleman 1942). Brodie in the early nineteenth century described the relationship of urethritis with an episodic arthritis involving predominantly lower extremity joints and the co-occurrence of conjunctivitis (Brodie 1818, 1836). The description by Reiter (1916) of a young soldier with nongono-coccal urethritis, conjunctivitis, and severe arthritis following an episode of bloody diarrhoea focused attention on the syndrome in the European literature and highlighted the possible aetiologic role of a dysenteric illness. The introduction of the concept of reactive arthritis by Ahvonen et al. (1%9) in 1969, the description of incomplete Reiter’s syndrome by Arnett et al. (1976) in 1976, and the recognition that Reiter’s syndrome and reactive arthritis form part of a spectrum of, synovitis occurring as a consequence of infection involving either the gastrointestinal or genitourinary tract (Keat 1983) permits these conditions to be considered together as part of the spectrum of seronegative spondyloarthropathies (Moll et al. 1974; Arnett 1987; Khan and van der Linden 1990).