Radiographic progression in rheumatoid arthritis

Robert Landewé, Désirée van der Heijde

University Hospital Maastricht, Department of Internal Medicine/Rheumatology, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

ABSTRACT
Radiographic progression is an important outcome measure in clinical trials and observational studies with patients with rheuamtoid arthritis. In this article we describe several aspects of measuring radiographic progression. We introduce the scoring method, discuss scoring methodology and issues regarding reliability of scoring, describe the relation between disease activity, radiographic progression and physical function, and introduce the concept of repair, a novelty in the field of measuring structural changes in RA.

Key words
Radiographic progression, repair, rheumatoid arthritis, probability plot, structural damage.

Please address correspondence to: Robert Landewé, University Hospital Maastricht, Department Internal Medicine/Rheumatology, P.O. Box 5800, 6202AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands.
E-mail: RLAN@SINT.AZM.NL

Clin Exp Rheumatol 2005; 23 (suppl. 39): S63-S68.
© CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RHEUMATOLOGY 2005.