▼ Background: Vitamin D is a potent regulator of calcium homeostasis and may have immunomodulatory effects. The influence of vitamin D on human autoimmune disease has not been well defined. The aim of this cross sectional study was to estimate the prevalence and determinants of vitamin D deficiency in patients with rheumatoid arthritis as compared to healthy controls and to analyze the associat...

OBJECTIVE To determine if withdrawing methotrexate (MTX) after 6 months of combination etanercept (ETN)+MTX, in MTX-inadequate responders with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), is non-inferior to continuing ETN+MTX. METHODS Tumour necrosis factor-inhibitor naïve RA patients with disease activity score 28 (DAS28)≥3.2, swollen joint count≥3, despite stable MTX, were treated with ETN+MTX for 6 m...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between function and disease activity in early inflammatory arthritis (EIA). METHODS Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort (CATCH) (n=1143) is a multi-site EIA cohort. Correlations between the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ) and DAS28 were done at every 3 months for the first year and then at 18 and 24 months. We also investigated the...

OBJECTIVES To explore whether changes in a composite (power Doppler/greyscale ultrasound (PDUS)) synovitis score, developed by the OMERACT-EULAR-Ultrasound Task Force, predict disease activity outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Patients with RA who were methotrexate inadequate responders starting abatacept were evaluated. Individual joint PDUS scores were combined in the Global OM...

BACKGROUND Disease Activity Score in 28 Joints (DAS28) is a scoring system to evaluate disease activity and treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A DAS28 score of greater than 3.2 is a well-described limit for treatment intensification; however, the reliability of DAS28 might be overestimated. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability of DAS28 in RA, especiall...

OBJECTIVES To examine whether low disease activity criteria using the disease activity score (DAS28) can be applied to identify a reasonably large number of patients with stable low disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over a six month period, with the ultimate intention of including these patients in a substitution based, shared care model. Additionally, to assess the reliability of t...

INTRODUCTION Pain remains the most important problem for people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Active inflammatory disease contributes to pain, but pain due to non-inflammatory mechanisms can confound the assessment of disease activity. We hypothesize that augmented pain processing, fibromyalgic features, poorer mental health, and patient-reported 28-joint disease activity score (DAS28) compon...

OBJECTIVES National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) state that two pre-assessments of Disease Activity Score (DAS28) should be performed a month apart. We performed a retrospective audit of data from six centres to determine the stability of DAS28 between assessments, and the proportion of patients...

Objectives: Our aim was to determine the disease activity (DAS28) and its correlation with antiMutated Citrullinated Vimentin antibody (antiMCV) positivity and other factors in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients, Saudis and non-Saudis. And to compare Disease Activity measurements using ESR (DAS28-ESR) and CRP (DAS28-CRP). Patients and methods: Retrospectively, data were obtained by files’ revie...

OBJECTIVE To assess methods to calculate achieving and sustaining remission in a double blind randomised trial in patients with RA who received etanercept, methotrexate, or an etanercept/methotrexate combination. METHODS Remission was defined as DAS <1.6, DAS28 <2.6, and ACR70 response. Sustaining remission was analysed in three ways: (a) analysis of sustained DAS remission, DAS28 remission, ...