Tender joint counts, part of the composite disease activity score (CDAS), correlated well with patient-reported outcomes in a longitudinal study of 209 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but did not correlate with the sum scores of either grey-scale or power Doppler ultrasonography. At 6 months, the baseline tender joint count positively predicted the CDAS (P < 0.001–0.019) but negatively predicted ultrasonography sum scores (P < 0.001) in patients with RA who were treated with biologic DMARDs, suggesting that the presence of tender joints might not be indicative of inflammation.
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Hammer, H. B. et al. Tender joint count may not reflect inflammatory activity in established rheumatoid arthritis patients – results from a longitudinal study. Arthritis Care Res. https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.23815 (2018)
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Collison, J. Tender joints might not indicate inflammation. Nat Rev Rheumatol 15, 2 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-018-0141-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-018-0141-2
