Rheumatoid Arthritis and Proteus

244 Pages·2012·1.36 MB·English

by  Alan Ebringer (auth.)

Rheumatoid Arthritis
and Proteus

Alan Ebringer
Rheumatoid Arthritis
and Proteus
Alan Ebringer B.Sc., M.D.,
FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath
Professor of Immunology
King’s College London and
Honorary Consultant
Rheumatologist
Middlesex Hospital
UCH School of Medicine
King’s College London
Division of Life Sciences
Franklin-Wilkins Building
150 Stamford Street
London, SE1 8WA
UK
ISBN 978-0-85729-949-9 e-ISBN 978-0-85729-950-5
DOI 10.1007/978-0-85729-950-5
Springer London Dordrecht Heidelberg New York
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011939310
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This book is dedicated to the memory of the late
Dr. Mary Corbett (1933–2009) who was a Consultant
Rheumatologist at the Middlesex Hospital (1969–1994)
in London.
She was an excellent clinician, meticulous in her clini-
cal care of patients and always available for friendly
advice and support.
She was the first to start a “Rheumatoid Arthritis
Prospective Study” (RAPS) in the UK which was a com-
prehensive and longitudinal investigation of the disease,
and established that early treatment was necessary before
erosive changes had occurred.
Mary Corbett was a co-author of the first paper which
linked the urinary microbe Proteus to rheumatoid arthri-
tis, the study having been carried out on her patients.

To my wife

Contents
1 Scope and Distribution of the RA Problem ............. 1
2 History of the Attempts to Find the
Cause of RA ................................................................ 9
3 HLA-DR1/4 and Antibodies
to Proteus in London................................................... 19
4 Antibodies to Proteus in Irish patients
with Rheumatoid Arthritis ......................................... 35
5 Antibodies to Proteus in Rheumatoid
Arthritis Patients from Bermuda
and from Hertfordshire in England ........................... 43
6 Antibodies to Proteus in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Patients from Brest and Toulouse in France ............ 55
7 Dutch Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Have Antibodies to Proteus ....................................... 63
8 Anti-Proteus Antibodies in Norwegian
Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Following
a Lactovegetarian Diet ................................................ 75
9 Antibodies to Proteus in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Patients from Norway, Spain and England ............... 83
10 Antibodies to Proteus in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Patients from Southern Japan .................................... 95
ix