To determine the percentage of patients who would develop chronic inflammatory rheumatism (CIR) following chikungunya (CHIK) virus disease.
We conducted a systematic review of the literature in 3 databases (PubMed, Science Citation Index, and Scopus) to identify studies assessing the proportion of patients who progress to CHIK-CIR. We performed a random-effects model meta-analysis to calculate the pooled prevalence and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). A 2-tailed alpha level of 5% was used for hypothesis testing. Measures of heterogeneity, including Cochran's Q statistic, the I
Up to June 15, 2015, our literature search yielded 578 citations. The pooled prevalence of CHIK-CIR in 18 selected studies among 5,702 patients was 40.22% (95% CI 31.11-49.34; τ
According to our results in the most conservative scenario, approximately 25% of CHIK cases would develop CHIK-CIR (34% if we just consider the most representative studies), and 14% would develop chronic arthritis.