Use adult RA assessment tools for juvenile idiopathic arthritis?

Continuous measures of disease activity used for assessment of adult rheumatoid arthritis may be valid measures in children with polyarticular-course juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). The scores may be valid in larger cohorts of children with polyarticular-course JIA that include children with early JIA and with varying degrees of disease severity.

Ringold and colleagues performed a secondary analysis of data from 2 clinical trials to determine whether the Disease Activity Score (DAS), Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI), and Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) could be useful for polyarticular JIA. Disease activity was measured before and after treatment with etanercept in 94 patients with JIA; the results were compared with those measured with the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Pediatric 30 criteria for improvement.

Moderate to very good correlation was found between continuous outcome measures-the DAS, DAS28, CDAI, and SDAI-and each set of ACR pediatric criteria. Values started high at baseline and declined to low levels by 6 months after treatment.

The authors noted that a continuous measure of disease activity in JIA would be a valuable tool that facilitates comparison of patient disease status and treatment response across clinical trials and their translation to clinical care.