Ten years of METEOR (an international rheumatoid arthritis registry): development, research opportunities and future perspectives.

OBJECTIVES: Ten years ago, the METEOR tool was developed to simulate treatment-to-target and create an international research database. The development of the METEOR tool and database, research opportunities and future perspectives are described. METHODS: The METEOR tool is a free, online, internationally available tool in which daily practice visits of all rheumatoid arthritis patients visiting a rheumatologist can be registered. In the tool, disease characteristics, patient- and physician-reported outcomes and prescribed treatment could be entered. These can be subsequently displayed in powerful graphics, facilitating treatment decisions and patient-physician interactions. An upload facility is also available, by which data from local electronic health record systems or registries can be integrated into the METEOR database. This is currently being actively used in, among other countries, the Netherlands, Portugal and India. RESULTS: Since an increasing number of hospitals use electronic health record systems, the upload facility is being actively used by an increasing number of sites, enabling them to benefit from the benchmark and research opportunities of METEOR. Enabling a connection between local registries and METEOR is a well established but time-consuming process for which an IT-specialist of METEOR and the local registry are necessary. However, once this process has been finished, data can be uploaded regularly and relatively easily according to a pre-specified format. The METEOR database currently contains data from >39,000 patients and >200,000 visits, from 32 different countries and is ever increasing. Continuous efforts are being undertaken to increase the quality of data in the database. CONCLUSIONS: Since METEOR was founded 10 years ago, many rheumatologists worldwide have used the METEOR tool to follow-up their patients and improve the quality of care they provide to their patients. Combined with uploaded data, this has led to an extensive growth of the database. It now offers a unique opportunity to study daily practice care and to perform research regarding cross-country differences in a large, worldwide setting, which could provide important knowledge about disease and its treatment in different geographic and clinical settings.

The value of magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound in undifferentiated arthritis: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To perform a systematic literature review of the diagnostic and prognostic value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound (US) in patients with undifferentiated peripheral inflammatory arthritis (UPIA), and to assess if MRI and US should be done at baseline and repeated, and if so, at what interval. METHODS: Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and abstracts presented at the 2007 and 2008 meetings of the American College of Rheumatology and European League Against Rheumatism meetings were searched for diagnostic and prognostic studies of any duration examining the ability of MRI/US to predict outcome of patients with UPIA. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and positive/negative likelihood ratios (LR+/LR-) were calculated. When available, odds ratios were extracted. Quality was appraised using validated scales. RESULTS: Regarding MRI, 11 out of 2595 screened references were included: 2 described pure undifferentiated arthritis (UA) populations and 9, mixed populations. Bone edema (LR+ 4.5) and combination of a distinct MRI synovitis and erosion pattern (LR+ 4.8) increased probability of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Absence of MRI synovitis (LR- 0.2) and absence of a distinct synovitis pattern (LR- 0) decreased probability of developing RA. Regarding US, 2 out of 2111 references were included, both mixed populations; no data could be extrapolated for UPIA. CONCLUSION: MRI bone edema and combined synovitis and erosion pattern seem useful in predicting development of RA from UPIA. The value of US in UPIA remains to be determined. The absence of MRI synovitis seems useful in excluding development of RA. No data were found about the value of repeating MRI/US. Studies evaluating MRI/US in UPIA are scarce, but current knowledge strongly encourages further testing in UA.

Endorsement of definitions of disease activity states and improvement scores for the Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score: results from OMERACT 10.

The Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) is a new composite index to assess disease activity in ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Criteria for disease activity states and improvement scores are important for use in clinical practice, observational studies, and clinical trials, and have been proposed by the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS). At OMERACT 10, our aim was to obtain endorsement from OMERACT for the ASDAS disease activity states and response criteria proposed by the ASAS membership. This article summarizes the associated discussions, the scientific basis of the validation process, and the results from the voting sessions, and identifies areas for research using the ASDAS. OMERACT participants agreed with the selection of cutoff values, which now have the combined endorsement of ASAS and OMERACT and are ready to be used in clinical practice and in research settings.