PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hayyah Clairman
AU  - Saunya Dover
AU  - Kristi Whitney
AU  - Jo-Anne Marcuz
AU  - Audrey Bell-Peter
AU  - Brian M.  Feldman
TI  - Correlation of a Modified Disease Activity Score with the Validated Original Disease Activity Score in Patients with Juvenile Dermatomyositis
AID  - 10.3899/jrheum.191255
DP  - 2020 Mar 15
TA  - The Journal of Rheumatology
PG  - jrheum.191255
4099  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2020/03/09/jrheum.191255.short
4100  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2020/03/09/jrheum.191255.full
AB  - Objective Juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) is a rare disease in children that is treatable, but patients may suffer from long-term effects of the disease. Clinical trials are needed to find better treatments for affected patients. Among validated tools for evaluating disease activity clinically is the disease activity score (DAS), but it is not routinely collected in all clinics. We developed a modified DAS (DASmod) which can be scored using data routinely collected by our clinical staff, and has been used in previous studies. This study’s objective was to determine if our DASmod correlates with the validated DAS in patients with JDM. Methods In this study, we used DASmod (scored 0-12) and DAS scores (scored 0-20) for patients with JDM in our clinic. We analysed the correlation between the DASmod and the validated DAS. Results For 51 patients seen in our JDM clinic, the median (IQR) DASmod score was 2.0 (0, 4.0) and the median (IQR) DAS score was 3.0 (0, 5.5). Scores on the two tools were highly positively correlated (r = 0.94, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.89, 0.96]). The linear regression was significant (R2 = 0.88, F (1, 49) = 357.60, p < 0.001) and in this dataset, the tools can be used interchangeably with the regression equation: DAS score = -0.26 + 1.5*DASmod. Conclusion If the regression equation from this dataset is successfully tested against future datasets, then further research collaborations between centres that collect different data related to disease activity in children with JDM will be facilitated.