Al-Attia et al, 1998, undertook a retrospective study on 17 Arab patients with ankylosing spondylitis. The patients were from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, and Syria. The authors found that only 56% of the Arab patients were positive for HLA-B27 as compared to 81% of Asians. 

Ebrahim et al, 2000, described a 33-year-old Bahraini male, with discitis. As he had tested positive for HLA-B27, and had a 30 year old HLA-B27 positive cousin with ankylosing spondylitis, the authors suggested that the discitis in this patient was probably due to an inflammatory process caused by ankylosing spondylitis.

Kawar and Al-Sayegh (2005) assessed the functional status of 52 male patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), using the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) to correlate the disease with clinical measures of spinal mobility, back pain, and back morning stiffness. 

[Kawar J, Al-Sayegh H. The relationship between clinical activity and function in ankylosing spondylitis patients. Bahrain Med Bull. 2005; 27(3)]

[See: Kuwait > Uppal et al., 2006; Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].

[See: Kuwait > Uppal et al., 2006; Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].

Sattar et al, 1988, described a patient with IDDM who developed rheumatoid arthritis followed by ankylosing spondylitis and dermatomyositis . HLA typing revealed the presence of HLA A2, A9, B8, B27, DR3, and DR4 antigens.

Uppal et al, 2006, compared the clinical features and HLA-B27 positivity of spondyloarthropathic patients of Middle Eastern Ancestry with those of patients of South Asian ethnicity. Of the 58 patients studied, 29 were Arabs, including 17 Kuwaitis, six Egyptians, three Syrians, two Jordanians, and one Lebanese. 

[See also: Syria > Sattar et al., 1992].

[See: Kuwait > Uppal et al., 2006; Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].

[See: Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].

[See: Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].

Al-Arfaj, 1996, described the profiles of 15 patients with ankylosing spondylitis of Arab origin seen at the King Khalid University Hospital over a period of four years. All the patients had symmetric radiographic sacroiliitis and 8 of them were found to be HLA-B27 positive.

Sattar, 1992, reported a 38-year-old Syrian woman with wide spread polyarteritis nodosa following an onset of HLA-B27 positive spondyloarthritis.  

Harfouch and Al-Cheikh, 2011, assessed the HLA-B27 allele and its subtypes associated with ankylosing spondylitis in 50 Syrian patients. HLA-B27 allele was found in 60% of AS patients compared to a frequency of 1.4% in 217 unrelated healthy Syrian controls.

[See also: Kuwait > Uppal et al., 2006; Arab > Al-Attia et al., 1998].