Adult Onset Still's Disease

Adult-onset Still's disease is a form of rheumatoid arthritis that was characterized by Bywaters in 1971. Its main feature is a combination of symptoms such as high fever, cutaneous rash during fever peaks, joint and muscle pain, lymph node enlargement, increased white cell count especially polymorphonuclear neutrophils and abnormalities of liver metabolism. None of these symptoms is sufficient to establish the diagnosis and infact may be present in several other diseases such as neoplastic and infectious diseases. Thus AOSD is a “diagnosis of exclusion”.