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Rheumatoid arthritis

Health status in rheumatoid arthritis over 7 years

A Boonen, R Landewé

Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University Hospital Maastricht and Caphri Research Institute, The Netherlands

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr A Boonen
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University Hospital Maastricht, PO Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands; aboo@sint.azm.nl

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The challenge is to separate fully the effect of the year of inclusion in the register and the effect of duration of the disease

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Keywords: patient perspective; priority; health status; pain; rheumatoid arthritis

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A pivotal question when evaluating the long term outcome of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is how the disease itself evolves over time and to what extent new treatments contribute to such changes. Insight into the evolution of the manifestations of RA can help to define agendas for research and healthcare delivery world wide. In this issue of the Annals Heiberg et al describe "7 year changes in health status and priorities for improvement of health in patients with rheumatoid arthritis" and conclude that "although pain remained the area of highest priority for improvement among patients, the health status improved from 1994 to 2001, probably owing to access to better and more aggressive treatments".¹ In this editorial, we will briefly elaborate on the strengths of longitudinal observational studies (LOS), in general, and on the relative importance of research on patient priorities in such studies, in particular. Next, we . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Uhlig, T, Heiberg, T, Mowinckel, P, Kvien, T K (2008). Rheumatoid arthritis is milder in the new millennium: health status in patients with rheumatoid arthritis 1994-2004. Ann Rheum Dis 67: 1710-1715 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• ten Klooster, P. M, Veehof, M. M, Taal, E., van Riel, P. L C M, van de Laar, M. A F J (2007). Changes in priorities for improvement in patients with rheumatoid arthritis during 1 year of anti-tumour necrosis factor treatment. Ann Rheum Dis 66: 1485-1490 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Matsui, T., Kuga, Y., Kaneko, A., Nishino, J., Eto, Y., Chiba, N., Yasuda, M., Saisho, K., Shimada, K., Tohma, S. (2007). Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28) using C-reactive protein underestimates disease activity and overestimates EULAR response criteria compared with DAS28 using erythrocyte sedimentation rate in a large observational cohort of rheumatoid arthritis patients in Japan. Ann Rheum Dis 66: 1221-1226 [Abstract] [Full Text]