Reiter's Syndrome and Reactive Arthritis in Perspective

REITER'S syndrome or disease is a well-recognized condition. It is now some 40 years since Bauer and Engleman proposed that the concurrence of a polyarthritis or monoarthritis, nongonococcal urethritis, and ocular inflammation should be regarded as a characteristic clinical syndrome.1 They concluded that an infectious cause was likely, but emphasized the lack of proof of this and the possibility that there were multiple etiologic factors.Unfortunately, the implication of the diagnosis varies considerably from one physician to another, since the condition is incompletely understood and lacks a unique definition. The breadth of the clinical spectrum of this condition is only . . .