Pooled indices to measure rheumatoid arthritis activity a good reflection of the physicians mind 英文参考文献.docVIP

Available online /content/8/1/102 Commentary Pooled indices to measure rheumatoid arthritis activity: a good reflection of the physician’s mind? Daniel Aletaha National Institutes of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, and Skin Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA Corresponding author: Daniel Aletaha, aletahad@ Published: 14 December 2005 Arthritis Research Therapy 2006, 8:102 (doi:10.1186/ar1870) This article is online at /content/8/1/102 ? 2005 BioMed Central Ltd See related research by Vander Cruyssen et al. in issue 7.5 [/content/7/5/R1063] Abstract disease activity. In other words, is the obtained number higher in those patients who physicians consider to have more active disease, and is it lower in those considered to have less active disease? Several pooled indices for the assessment of rheumatoid arthritis disease activity are available to rheumatologists. Face and criterion validity of these instruments can be assessed by determining the association of their measurements with opinions of physicians. Several confounding aspects must be considered in such analyses, especially blinding of the person(s) making the decisions to the instruments being studied and to the objective of the study in general. From several studies in the literature, there is currently no evidence that any one of the available composite indices is better or worse than any other. The choice of index in clinical practice should ideally be based on practical considerations related to the needs of the rheumatologist in the respective health care setting. In a recent issue of Arthritis Research Therapy, Vander Cruyssen and colleagues [2] aimed to compare this aspect of validity for the various disease activity indices. The results from their study suggest that the DAS28 is the best determinant of physician opinion, based on each physician’s decision to incr