Table 1 Definition of remission as treatment outcome/disease state in RA
Remission criteria | Definition |
|---|---|
ACR criteria | For clinical remission, a minimum of five of the following items must be present for at least two subsequent months: |
|  |    Morning stiffness <15 minutes |
|  |    No fatigue |
|  |    No joint pain by history |
|  |    No joint tenderness or pain on motion |
|  |    No soft-tissue swelling in joints or tender sheats |
|  |    ESR < 30 mm/1st hour in women or < 20 mm/1st hour in men |
Disease activity score criteria | DAS remission defined as a score <1.6 using a compound index of the following measures: |
|  |    Ritchie articular index of tender joints |
|  |    44 swollen joint count |
|  |    ESR |
|  |    Patient's assessment of general health (measured on a 100 mm visual analogue scale) |
| Â | DAS28 remission defined as a score <2.6 using a compound index of the following measures: |
|  |    28-joint count for tender and swollen joints |
|  |    ESR |
|  |    Patient's assessment of general health |
FDA criteria | Remission |
|  |    Requires achieving ACR clinical remission and absence of radiological progression (Larsen or Sharp-van der Heijde method) over a continuous 6 month period in the absence of DMARDs |
| Â | Complete clinical remission |
|  |    Same as remission, but while continuing DMARD therapy |
| Â | Major clinical response |
|  |    Requires achieving ACR70 response for at least 6 subsequent months (ACR70 response means 70% improvement of tender and swollen joint count coupled with improvement in 3 of 5 of the following: patient's assessment, physician's assessment, ESR or CRP, pain scale, Health Assessment Questionnaire) |