Hi Bilko
All this microbiology has my head spinning. I would like to make one simple point which seems to have been missed in the discussion.
You said "Ebringer's classification into two groups is really very simple; he would listen to the patient's medical history to form an opinion, then if AS was suspected test the level of klebs specific antibodies. If you had inflammation and pain but no elevated klebs IgA then it wasn't AS. Otherwise it was. "
I don't know what it is like in the UK but here in Australia I am not sure if the local labs are even capable of making these tests. I think I could say with confidence that none of the people diagnosed with AS that I see would have had such a test. So Ebringer's study groups and the AS patients I see are likely to be significantly different. Surely it becomes questionable, perhaps even inappropriate, to use Ebringer's studies to make general comments about present AS sufferers as has been done throughout this discussion.
Wally
