Kroniske revmatikere

Zoltan var doktorgradsstudent fra Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) og University of Pécs i Ungarn. Hans doktorgradsoppgave var et samarbeid mellom Oslo Nye Høyskole og de to nevnte universitetene, samt Oslo Universitetssykehus (OUS). 

The project
The basis of my international PhD work has been established by the fruitful cooperation between Bjorknes University College and the Medical School of University of Pécs.

My supervisors met on diverse occasions in the course of this collaboration, and proposed a scientific cooperation besides educational, to promote this successful partnership. I came to Oslo in September 2013 as the initiative of this proposed collaboration. I am involved in an ongoing clinical study investigating patients with juvenile dermatomyositis. This cross-sectional cohort study was established in 2005, to investigate outcomes, predisposing factors and early predictors of unfavorable disease course in juvenile dermatomyositis. All the patients and controls were included in the study by my Norwegian supervisors, Helga Sanner at OUS-Rikshospitalet, and Ivar Sjaastad, OUS-Ullevål.

Juvenile dermatomyositis is the childhood onset type of dermatomyositis; a rare, autoimmune disease with unknown origin. The disease primarily affects the skin and muscles, meaning that most of the patients have skin rashes, muscle weakness and/or muscle pain, because of a sterile/autoimmune inflammatory process affecting these tissues. Some decades ago, there was no treatment available and most of the patients died or became physically disabled due to the disease. Nowadays, we have effective drugs (corticosteroids and other immunosuppressive drugs) and the long-term outcomes are relative good. However, due to the chronic disease course (there is no curative therapy), patients may develop damage in different organ systems, such as in the respiratory-, gastrointestinal- or cardiovascular systems.

Previously the research group I’m a part of has published interesting results in these patient cohort regarding the activity of the disease, levels of inflammatory markers and other laboratory parameters, pulmonary and cardiac function, among others. Continuing this work, I evaluate (1) long term ECG recordings and (2) microscopic pictures from the participants’ nailfold-capillaries, in order to assess arrhythmias, heart rate variability, autonomic nervous system function, and microvascular damage.

Our aim is to assess arrhythmias, autonomic function, and microvascular damage, furthermore, to correlate these findings to different disease outcomes. This work may help the better understanding of the disease mechanism in juvenile dermatomyositis. This work also aims to find predictors for specific and/or overall organ damages, which may be helpful to diagnose patients with high risk for complications, and to treat them as early as possible.

Other projects

• Capillaroscopy project
  • Capillaroscopy means that we take microscopic pictures from the fingers’ nailfolds, in order to analyze the capillaries based on their density, shape and size. This method is one of the clinical routine examinations in the differential diagnosis of certain connective tissue diseases (rheumatic diseases), among others. We hypothesize that there is connection between capillaroscopic pattern and cardiac function in juvenile dermatomyositis.
     

Read more about Zoltan´s publications