Health-related Quality of Life, Electrocardiographic and Holter Findings in Children With Familial Mediterranean Fever

Plain-language summary

Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) also known as 'periodic peritonitis,' 'familial paroxysmal polyserositis,' 'periodic disease,' 'Siegal-Cattan-Mamou disease,' 'Wolff periodic disease' or 'Reimann syndrome' is an autosomal recessive autoinflammatory disease that causes recurrent fevers and serositis. FMF is caused by a mutation in the Mediterranean fever (MEFV) gene located on the short arm of chromosome 16. This gene produces a protein called pyrin which binds to an apoptosis-associated speck-like protein (ASC) and caspase-1 to inhibit activation of IL-1beta (interleukin) and hence, the inflammatory pathways. Mutation of MEFV genes disrupts pyrin protein and its function, which leads to activation of IL-1beta and then the entire inflammatory pathway. FMF affects primarily the populations located on the Mediterranean basin mainly Armenians, Turks, Arabs and non-Ashkenazi Jews. However, some new cases have been described in European countries. Turkey is presumed the country with the highest number of FMF patients worldwide, with a prevalence ranging from 1:400 to 1:1000. The exact prevalence of FMF among Arab countries is unknown. FMF manifests as recurrent attacks of fever and serositis causing severe chest, abdominal, or joint pain. Erysipelas like lesions, scrotal swelling and myalgia can also occur. Patients feel normal between attacks. The severity of the attacks may vary each time, and the time between two attacks could be anywhere from one week to even several years. Some patients reported particular triggers with the appearance of attacks like severe stress, cold exposure, heavy exercise, recent infection, recent surgery, and menstruation. The first attack frequently occurs in childhood, and it usually begins before the age of 20 years. All attacks develop over 2 to 4 hours and last anywhere from 6 hours to 4 days. Colchicine has been the treatment of choice for this disease since 1972. Amyloidosis is the most common complication of FMF, determining whether the prognosis of the disease is associated with progression to nephrotic syndrome and end-stage renal disease. Colchicine prevents the occurrence of amyloidosis, to stop amyloidosis, and even regress it. The duration of the disease is not the main cause of amyloidosis but specific genetic and environmental conditions is necessary. Early atherosclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis and peritoneal mesothelioma due to chronic inflammation were also reported. WHO (1997) defined quality of life (QoL) as someone's perception of his position in life depending on the cultural environment, his goals, expectations, principles and values. It is a multidimensional concept, encompasses individuals' physical, emotional health, psychological state, level of independence, social achievements and spiritual state. QoL is dynamic; its perception changes with changing priorities and beliefs of the individual (5). Health related quality of life (HRQoL) is the effect of medical disorder or treatment on individual's physical, emotional, and social well-being. The HRQoL measurement therefore attempts to capture QoL in the context of one's health and illness. In addition, HRQoL also involves an individual's satisfaction about his life, general health and well-being. WHO declared that the goal of treatment not merely to decrease symptoms and improve signs but also to improve patient's HRQoL. HRQoL has been progressively acknowledged as an essential outcome measure in clinical trials and health service research and evaluation. It is essential to evaluate QoL to clearly understand the effects of diseases on children to help making decisions and adjust plans. Moreover, improving the QoL in children and adolescents with chronic diseases is a very important long-term goal in paediatric rehabilitation. Thomas and colleagues in their research studied HRQoL of 118 children with FMF and 100 healthy controls in Cairo using PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scale and illustrated that HRQoL was significantly lower in FMF compared to healthy controls (mean ± SD of total score was 33.97 ± 12.61 and 85.29 ± 14.03, for diseased and control group respectively, P value: \<0.001). Also, HRQoL total score was significantly negatively correlated with frequency of the attacks (r = -.49, P value: \<0.001) and with disease severity (r = -0.74, P value: \<0.001). (8) Cardiovascular system involvement is among the causes of high morbidity and mortality in FMF. Different cardiovascular complications had been reported in FMF as valvular affection, pericarditis, pericardial effusion, cardiomyopathy and ventricular dysfunction were reported among patients with FMF. FMF causes also variations in the duration of the action potential creating cardiac repolarization abnormalities causing arrhythmias even without the presence of amyloidosis and can occur' not only during periods of attack but also in patients who do not experience attack. (9) Cardiac autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays an integral

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