Hypermobility, the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and chronic pain D. Syx, I. De Wandele, L. Rombaut, F. Malfait Center for Medical Genetics, ABSTRACT the nature and mediators of chronic Ghent University and Ghent Chronic widespread pain is a common pain are needed in order to potentially University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium. complaint among individuals affected identify novel targets for therapeutic in- Delfien Syx, PhD by generalised joint hypermobility. In tervention and optimise treatment. Inge De Wandele, PT, PhD the absence of other conditions that Lies Rombaut, PT, PhD cause chronic pain, these individuals Hypermobility, joint hypermobility Fransiska Malfait, MD, PhD are usually diagnosed with joint hyper- syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos Please address correspondence to: mobility syndrome (JHS). JHS is a mul- syndromes Dr Fransiska Malfait, Center for Medical Genetics, tifactorial trait with a strong genetic Joint hypermobility (JH) implies a Ghent University Hospital, basis, but no specific genetic markers. range of joint movement that exceeds De Pintelaan 185, Clinical overlap of JHS is seen with what is considered to be normal for that 9000 Ghent, Belgium. heritable connective tissue disorders, joint, taking into account the individu- E-mail:
[email protected] particularly with the Ehlers-Danlos al’s age, gender and ethnicity. JH can be Received and accepted on September 8, syndrome, hypermobile type (hEDS). limited to one or a few joints (localised 2017. The Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) JH), but when present at multiple sites Clin Exp Rheumatol 2017; 35 (Suppl. 107): comprise a heterogeneous group of rare the term generalised JH (GJH) is pre- S116-S122. monogenic conditions that are charac- ferred (1).