Abstract
1. Eleven patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, most of them young adults at a terminal stage, were found to have structural scoliosis with curves measuring between 20 and 80 degrees.
2. The common feature was severe and protracted rheumatoid disease.
3. The characteristics of the spinal curves are analysed; the longer curves may have been caused by muscle imbalance and the shorter curves possibly by asymmetrical involvement of the inter-apophyseal joints.
4. It is suggested that juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is an unusual etiological factor of scoliosis.
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