Warning to MPs over back pain diagnosis

As many as 200,000 people in the UK suffer from the rheumatic disease ankylosing spondylitis but many people wait for as long as 10 years before they are told they have the condition.

Experts will today present a report to MPs warning GPs too often confuse the symptoms with more common kinds of back pain.

The failure means patients face delays in receiving specialist care they need despite widespread agreement on the best approach to diagnosing and managing the condition.

Dr Helena Marzo-Ortega, of Leeds University and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, will join colleagues in lobbying Parliament to improve access to essential tests to confirm doctors' suspicions about the condition as well as therapies to limit disease damage and improve patients' mobility.

She said: "GPs are often unable to distinguish the signs of this inflammatory disorder from other more common kinds of spinal pain. This is why it is vital that people with suspected ankylosing spondylitis are referred to a specialist rheumatologist."

The condition affects between two and five adults in every 1,000. It begins with back pain and stiffness, which progressively gets worse as the disease progresses and can lead to the spine becoming deformed.

The backbone will eventually fuse together completely in around 25 per cent of cases, leading to substantial disability. Other joints can also be affected and as the symptoms get worse, sufferers are forced to take more sick leave and in some cases stop working altogether.

Key recommendations put forward by Dr Marzo-Ortega and her colleagues in the report published by the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society (NASS) today include:

Using magnetic resonance imaging and specialist blood tests to speed up the diagnosis;

Improving access to physiotherapy and water therapy services to help keep patients mobile;

Providing more information to patients about new effective drug treatments and spinal surgery.