Astrid van TUBERGEN, coworker of Sjef VAN DER LINDEN in Maastricht, investigated – together with 9 co-authors from the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria – the efficacy of a combined 3-weeks spa and exercise therapy compared with the standard treatment with drugs and weekly group physiotherapy. They found that the combined spa and exercise therapy is significantly more effective. In particular, they found that the beneficial effect is still significant half a year after the spa therapy if the visit of Bad Gastein’s thermal radon gallery is included in the therapy program. The report is a patient-adapted shortened version of an article appeared in 2001 in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.

Methods of measuring the disease activity, the function etc. in AS patients are more  frequently being used in therapy studies, such as the one mentioned above. In a separate article, we make our members familiar with the scores BASDAI, BASFI, BASMI, BAS-G, and BASRI. For two of these scores, a verified German translation has already been published in the Zeitschrift für Rheumatologie.

Also included in the therapy program of the study mentioned above was the therapeutic sports of “walking”. Manfred HARDER, one of our members who is also active in a sports club, describes his experiences with this soft but effective kind of sports.

In a biophysics workshop in Schlema, the present state of radon research was presented and discussed. My report on this meeting summarises possible mechanisms of the radon treatment as well as the present state of our knowledge of radiation risks. For patients with a chronic disease like AS, the risk of radon treatment (if existing) is much smaller than the risk of taking regularly nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) the doses of which can often be reduced after radon therapy.

Elisabeth MÄRKER-HERMANN, internationally recognized AS researcher and holder of DVMB’s research prize, became head of a specialist department focused on rheumatology, clinical immunology and nephrology in the Dr. Horst Schmidt hospitals of Wiesbaden. We congratulate her to this new responsible position.

Wolfgang and Herbert KELLNER from the university in Munich complement their article on the diagnostics of the sacroiliac joint published in Bechterew-Brief No. 87, by a second article on the radiology of the sacroiliac joints. They compare the value of conventional radiographs, X-ray computed tomography, scintigraphy, and magnetic resonance imaging for the diagnosis of sacroiliitis. A German version of the modified New-York criteria of ankylosing spondylitis and of the sacroiliitis scores contained in these criteria is included in this article. The scientific original of this article appeared in 2001 in MMW-Fortschritte der Medizin.

Under the title “number needed to kill“, Wolfgang BOLTEN has published in 2001 in the Zeitschrift für Rheumatologie a report on the individual risk of taking NSAIDs. Statistically, one among 1 220 patients taking NSAIDs for more than 2 months, die from gastrointestinal side effects. A cartoon drawn by our cartoonist C. BORN illustrates the situation where new prescriptions are necessary to compensate for the damages caused by former prescriptions.

H. GEIDEL regards the self-help idea and the doctor-patient relation in the former GDR, in presence and in future.

In a book review, a translation of the American book “Eat right for your type – the individualized diet solution for staying healthy" by Peter J. D’ADAMO and Catherine WHITNEY is reviewed.

DVMB News:
Reports on seminars on “AS and sports”, on “AS in the young family”, a seminar for female AS patients and a seminar especially organised by and for young AS patients are included in this issue.