Rheumatic Disease : Article and Solution

John Edmonds
Dept of Rheumatology
St George Hospital, Sydney, Australia

‘Disease Activity’ in rheumatoid arthritis is a concept that attempts to capture, in some quantitative sense, the energy of pathological processes that result in the damage of rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatologists speak of disease that is more or less ‘active’, of persistent ‘disease activity’ resulting in ‘joint damage’. Given that the thrust of RA therapy is ‘disease control’, clinicians need some measure of ‘disease activity’. Disease activity is the target of antirheumatic
therapy but how can we know whether treatment is ‘adequate’ if we cannot measure the target of our therapy? (more…)