Juvenile arthritis disease activity score (JADAS) based on C-reactive protein predicts DMARD treatment in juvenile idiopathic arthritis in a Nordic multicenter cohort

Purpose Juvenile Arthritis Disease Activity Score (JADAS) is a recently developed composite tool for scoring disease activity in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). JADAS consists of four items; the joint count, the physician and the patient’s/parent’s global assessment and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) as an inflammatory marker. C-reactive protein (CRP) is often a more rapid and available test than ESR and has been suggested as an alternative inflammatory marker. The aim of the study was to validate and compare the CRP versus the ESR as an inflammatory marker in JADAS and to test whether higher JADAS scores were associated to DMARD treatment in a cohort of Nordic children with JIA in a near population-based setting.