TY - JOUR AU - Aletaha, Daniel AU - Nell, Valerie PK AU - Stamm, Tanja AU - Uffmann, Martin AU - Pflugbeil, Stephan AU - Machold, Klaus AU - Smolen, Josef S. PY - 2005 DA - 2005/04/07 TI - Acute phase reactants add little to composite disease activity indices for rheumatoid arthritis: validation of a clinical activity score JO - Arthritis Research & Therapy SP - R796 VL - 7 IS - 4 AB - Frequent assessments of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity allow timely adaptation of therapy, which is essential in preventing disease progression. However, values of acute phase reactants (APRs) are needed to calculate current composite activity indices, such as the Disease Activity Score (DAS)28, the DAS28-CRP (i.e. the DAS28 using C-reactive protein instead of erythrocyte sedimentation rate) and the Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI). We hypothesized that APRs make limited contribution to the SDAI, and that an SDAI-modification eliminating APRs – termed the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI; i.e. the sum of tender and swollen joint counts [28 joints] and patient and physician global assessments [in cm]) – would have comparable validity in clinical cohorts. SN - 1478-6354 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/ar1740 DO - 10.1186/ar1740 ID - Aletaha2005 ER -