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- Published on: 16 April 2022
- Published on: 16 April 2022Correspondence on “Unexpected impact of COVID-19 lockdown on spinal mobility and health perception in spondyloarthritis” by De Mits S, De Craemer A-S, Deroo L, et al.
We read with great interest the article reported by De Mits and colleagues [1] suggesting that lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased chest expansion but did not have any impact on spinal mobility or disease activity in patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA).
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We conducted a similar study in France during the first lockdown (17th March-10th May 2020), which included all patients with SpA from our centre, who received bDMARDs administered intravenously in the immunotherapy unit of our outpatient clinic. In this unit, a standardized procedure is applied to collect clinical, biological and if necessary, imaging data at each clinical visit. During this period of lockdown, patients had at least one clinical examination. The Visual Analog Scale (VAS) values for pain, asthenia and activity, as well as the BASDAI (Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index) and BASFI (Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index) were collected and averaged from two clinical visits, one before (pre-lockdown) and one after (post-lockdown) and then compared with the data collected during lockdown. Fifty-nine patients ((mean ± SD) 52±12 years at the time of the study, 33 men, 26 women) were included during the study period. All patients had stable disease and none developed COVID-19 symptoms during this period. We also included a cohort of 50 patients (mean age of 62 years at the time of the study, 10 men, 40 women) with rheumatoid arthritis. The VAS values for pain, asthenia and...Conflict of Interest:
None declared.