Established in 1988 to increase public awareness of ankylosing spondylitis and related diseases and to disseminate knowledge of the diseases around the world

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Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a rheumatic inflammatory disease primarily affecting the spine and sacroiliac joints, is also called "Morbus Bechterew" in some European countries. You will find this popular name of the disease in the name of some European AS societies.

Related diseases: Ankylosing spondylitis sometimes overlaps with psoriasis, with an inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis), or with the eye conditions uveitis or iritis. These overlapping conditions as well as Reiter's disease, reactive arthritis, and undifferentiated spondyloarthritis, form together the group of related diseases collectively known as "spondyloarthritides" or "spondyloarthropathies".

According to scientific literature, the prevalence of ankylosing spondylitis is about 0.5% among the adult "white" population and the prevalence of the whole spondyloarthritis group is about 1,7%. In the native population of Northern parts of Europe and America the prevalence is higher, and in Eastern Asia and in Southern continents the prevalence is lower.

For details on these conditions visit for instance"What is spondylitis?" and consecutive pages of the "Spondylitis Association of America", or "Questions you may have" and consecutive pages of the British "National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society". For details in other languages visit the web sites of corresponding AS societies.

Literature on ankylosing spondylitis offered by the patient organisations is listed in the web-sites of the AS societies. Books on ankylosing spondylitis available also in book shops are listed with their ISBN numbers in a separate list of Books on ankylosing spondylitis. A decription of a booklet on assessment scores and classification and diagnosis criteria for AS published by ASIF is also shown, as well as forms for the assessment of AS in several languages.

An overview of the AS patient organisations existing today is shown under National AS societies and in the World map indicating where AS societies exist.

If there is no AS society in your country, you find here hints How to set up a new AS patient organisation.

More about ASIF may be found in pages on the Aims of ASIF, on ASIF's Executive Committee, on the ASIF constitution, on the ASIF history,

 on How to become an ASIF member organisation?, on the contents of distributed issues of "ASIF News", and on Scientific studies initiated by ASIF.