2024/12/01 by Jürgen Braun · 1 voice
Medicine · #Rheumatoid Arthritis Research and Therapies #Spine and Intervertebral Disc Pathology #Spondyloarthritis Studies and Treatments
paper · pdf · doi:10.3899/jrheum.2024-0807
openalex publication_date 2024/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The DESIR ( Devenir des spondylarthropathies indifférenciées récentes ) cohort is a rather successful 10-year follow-up study of 708 patients with early inflammatory back pain lasting > 3 months and < 3 years, and recruited within 26 months in 25 centers in France. Patients were followed up every 6 months during the first 2 years and then once every year.1 The mean age at baseline was 34 (SD 9) years, 54% were female, and 57% were HLA-B27 positive. Very recently, the 10-year data on radiographic progression of patients from this cohort, classified as having either nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA) or radiographic axSpA (r-axSpA; also known as ankylosing spondylitis [AS]), were published.2 In axSpA, the axial skeleton is mainly affected through inflammation and new bone formation; this is well known to mostly start in the third decade of life, with patients often presenting with the characteristic feature of inflammatory back pain. The difference between the classification as r-axSpA or nr-axSpA is historically based on the presence or absence of definite radiographic changes in the sacroiliac joints (SIJ) of patients with axSpA, which is equivalent to fulfilling the radiographic criterion of the 1984 modified New York (mNY) criteria for AS. Since back pain is a frequent symptom, there is often a considerable delay in diagnosis between 5 to 10 years after the onset of symptoms. Clearly, reduction of pain and maintenance/improvement of function are important factors for patients, and spinal radiographic progression is considered an important long-term outcome of axSpA, which can be predicted—next to male sex and smoking—by the persistence of … Address correspondence to Prof. J. Braun, RVZ Steglitz, Schloßstr.110, 12163 Berlin, Germany. Email: juebraunatgmx.de.