RESEARCH - Repair of erosions in RA does occur. Results 2 studies by the OMERACT Subcommitte on Healing of Erosions

[Guest guest]

J Rheumatol. 2003 May;30(5):1102-7.

Repair of erosions in rheumatoid arthritis does occur. Results from 2

studies by the OMERACT Subcommittee on Healing of Erosions.

Sharp JT, Van Der Heijde D, Boers M, Boonen A, Bruynesteyn K, Emery P,

Genant HK, Herborn G, Jurik A, Lassere M, McQueen F, Østergaard M,

fy C, Rau R, Strand V, Wassenberg S, Weissman B; Subcommittee on

Healing of Erosions of the OMERACT Imaging Committee.

University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

The committee was charged with determining whether healing of erosions

in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) occurs. Two exercises were performed: The

first asked the committee members, as a panel of experts, to express

agreement or disagreement with the presence of improvement and

features of bone reaction to injury in images submitted by members as

examples of healing. The second presented panel members with 28 pairs

of serial images, 14 chosen to illustrate progression and 14 chosen to

illustrate repair. Agreement was tested on 8 items: global judgment on

which image in the pair was better, relative size of the erosion in

the 2 images, judgment on which image was first, presence and extent

of sclerosis, cortication, filling-in, remodeling, and reconstituting

normal structure. Our results showed good agreement, among the 15

respondents, on global assessment of which image was better and which

image showed the smaller erosion. Correct assignment of sequence was

only slightly better than expected by chance (in 65% of the cases).

Agreement was poor regarding the presence of morphologic features of

bone repair. A majority of a panel of experts agreed on which 2nd

images in a set of paired, serial images represented improvement and

which showed progression based on global assessment of which was

better and on size of erosion. Features of bone repair were not

distinctive and did not enable the panel to deduce the correct

sequence of the serial images. This study provides evidence that

repair of bone damage in RA does occur, resulting in some degree of

improvement, which was recognized by a majority of a panel of experts.

PMID: 12734916

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12734916

Not an MD