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Rheumatology 2001; 40: 121-122
© 2001 British Society for Rheumatology

Editorial

The ‘zero patient’ design to compare the prevalences of rare diseases

H. Yazici, M. Biyikli, S. van der Linden1 and H. J. A. Schouten2

Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty, University of Istanbul and
1 Departments of Medicine and
2 Methodology and Statistics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Ascertaining the population frequency of a rare disease is difficult and costly. Some rheumatic diseases show considerable geographical variation in prevalence. Behçet's syndrome (BS) and Takayasu arteritis are examples. These conditions seem to be rare in the north compared with the south of Europe. There seems to be a lack of population-based surveys [1], and studies comparing different geographical regions are needed in order to provide some insight into the aetiopathogenesis of such diseases.

We believe that comparative estimates of the frequencies of these conditions can be made relatively easily even though the true prevalences may remain unknown. The relative frequency of a disease can be estimated by not finding the disease in . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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