[Is DAS a profitable score to be used for rheumatoid arthritis patient follow up?]

Abstract

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a complex systemic joint inflammatory disease with differing manifestations and evolution. A valid, reliable and sensitive assessment procedure that is able to differentiate the inflammatory activity is essential in clinical practice, both in terms of reaching therapeutic decisions and assessing the response to treatment. The methods currently employed to assess the activity of RA are a combination of clinical parameters, laboratory tests and indicators of the progression of the disease, such as the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), the Disease Activity Score (DAS) and the Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI). The emergence of new and more effective therapies obliges us to be more demanding in our therapeutic objectives, and therefore to consider the suitability of the methods that we use to follow our patients' progress.