Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is one of the most common genetic diseases in the world with more than 500,000 patients. Most are concentrated in Turkey, Israel, Armenia and other countries in the Mediterranean basin, however due to population migration FMF patients have been identified virtually in every country around the globe. With the increasing awareness of FMF and other autoinflammatory diseases in a wider geography, information concerning new disease associations, genotype-phenotype relations, effect of environmental factors, new treatment modalities, and recent advances in the pathogenesis have been accumulated. After being diagnosed with the disease, a disease for life, patients are left with many questions regarding their disease. This book encompasses all possible aspects of the disease, symptoms, clinical and genetic diagnosis, treatment, complications as well as a personal point of view from the patient's side in coping with the disease. The book is detailed and comprehensive so that it could also be a great value for medical staff, physicians and nurses interested in learning more details about the disease.
- Provides answers by medical experts to critical real world questions
- Gives an overview and an update on FMF
- Shows that FMF is not restricted to Mediterranean countries, and the lack of diagnosis in other areas of the world is probably due to a lack of awareness of this fascinating disease
- Raises the awareness of physicians regarding this disease so that patients can obtain the correct diagnosis and receive the appropriate treatment
Table of Contents
1. Historic perspectives in FMF2. Epidemiology and ethnic distribution
3. Clinical features of FMF
4. Amyloidosis in FMF
5. Differential diagnosis of FMF
6. Colchicine treatment in FMF
7. Anti interleukin 1 treatment in FMF
8. Medical follow up for FMF patients
9. FMF in children
10. The genetics of FMF
11. Accompanying diseases in FMF
12. FMF and the kidney
13. Fibromyalgia in FMF
14. Protracted Febrile Myalgia in FMF
15. Fertility issues in FMF
16. Long term prognosis in FMF
17. Living with FMF
18. The work market for patients with FMF
19. Questions and answers
Authors
Shoenfeld, YehudaProf. Yehuda Shoenfeld is the founder and head of the Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases, at the Sheba Medical Center which is affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine in Tel-Aviv University, in Israel. Dr. Shoenfeld is the Incumbent of the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair for Research of Autoimmune Diseases at the Tel-Aviv University.
His clinical and scientific works focus on autoimmune and rheumatic diseases, and he has published more than 1750 papers in journals such as New Eng J Med, Nature, Lancet, Proc Nat Acad Scie, J Clin Invest, J Immunol, Blood, FASEB, J Exp Med, Circulation, Cancer and others. His articles have had over 35,000 citations. He has written more than three hundred and fifty chapters in books, and has authored and edited 25 books, some of which became cornerstones in science and clinical practice, such as "The Mosaic of Autoimmunity", "Infections and Autoimmunity" and the textbook "Autoantibodies" and "Diagnostic criteria of autoimmune diseases", all of which were published by Elsevier and sold by the thousands.
He is on the editorial board of 43 journals in the field of rheumatology and autoimmunity and is the founder and the editor of the IMAJ (Israel Medical Association Journal) the representative journal of science and medicine in the English language in Israel, and also is the founder and Editor of the "Autoimmunity Reviews" (Elsevier) (Impact factor 7.9) and Co-Editor of "Journal of Autoimmunity" (Impact factor 8.1). He has organized over 20 international congresses in autoimmunity.
Prof. Shoenfeld received the EULAR prize in 2005, in Vienna, Austria: "The infectious etiology of anti-phospholipid syndrome". He has received a gold medal from the Slovak Society of Physicians for his contribution to Israel - Slovakia collaboration (March 2006), and is honorary member of the Hungarian Association of Rheumatology. In UC Davis, USA, Dr. Shoenfeld received the Nelson's Prize for Humanity and Science for 2008. In 2009 he was honored as Doctoris Honoris Causa, from Debrecen University (Hungary), and from 2009 he is honorary member of the Slovenian National Academy of Sciences. He has recently been awarded a Life Contribution Prize in Internal Medicine in Israel, 2012 as well as the ACR Master Award in 2013.
Prof. Shoenfeld has educated a long list of students (>25) being heads of departments and institutes.
Pras, Elon Prof. Elon Pras, MD, PhD Genetics Research serves as an Associate Professor at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and is actively involved in teaching medical, MSc and PhD students. Prof. Pras serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board of PsoriasisDX, LLC; DermaGenoma, ;Inc and HairDX, LLC. He is the Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at the Sheva Medical Center, Israel. The Institute is the largest of its kind in the Middle East and it performs thousands of clinical diagnostic genetic testing each month. The Institute is also highly dedicated to science and research. After completing residency in internal medicine, he joined a four year a fellowship program in rheumatology and molecular genetics at the National Institutes of Health. He continued with a second fellowship in clinical genetics which he finished in 2001. Prof. Pras is an expert in positional cloning, a technique which is used to identify genes that cause genetic diseases. During the last 10 years, he was involved in the identification of the genes that cause familial Mediterranean fever, cystinuria, cardiac arrhythmias, familial cataract, autosomal dominant hypotrichosis simplex and autosomal recessive monilethrix. Prof. Pras is graduated from medical school at the Beer Sheba University in 1985. He has Ph.D in Genetics Research
