Introduction:

Felty's syndrome is a rare extra-articular complication of rheumatoid arthritis, first described in 1924. Felty described 5 patients who were characterized by the presence of a clinical triad of rheumatoid arthritis, splenomegaly, and neutropenia that appears fundamentally in patients with long years of evolution of their disease. It is a clinical entity with a high degree of mortality, given that it is a poorly diagnosed disease and therefore not treated.

Objective:

Present a clinical case of Felty´s syndrome, its clinical characteristics and the therapeutic procedure used.

Clinical case:

64-year-old female patient with a history of rheumatoid arthritis and hypothyroidism; both diseases without regular treatment. She attended to emergency with fever and the presence of ulcerative lesions on the left lower limb with a necrotic background. Due to leukopenia accompanied by splenomegaly, she was diagnosed with febrile neutropenia (sepsis) secondary to Felty's syndrome. Treatment was established and healing of the ulcerative lesions was gradually achieved, the eradication of the infection with recovery of normal neutrophil values and the subsequent recovery of the patient.

Conclusions:

When diagnosing Felty’s syndrome, the essential thing is to achieve immediate control of the underlying disease and the comorbidities; and through treatment obtain an increase in patient survival.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )