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Criteria of the Ankylosing Spondylitis Working Group for Clinical Remission

Purpose: To evaluate a patient with ankylosing spondylitis before and after therapy using the Ankylosing Spondylitis Working Group (ASWG) criteria for remission.

Description

The Ankylosing Spondylitis Working Group (ASWG) developed criteria for describing partial remission following therapy for ankylosing spondylitis. This can be used to monitor the response to therapy over time. The authors are from multiple university hospitals in France, The Netherlands, and Massachusetts.


Patient selection: The baseline disease measures should be >= 20.

 

Domains evaluated:

(1) pain

(2) function

(3) inflammation

(4) global assessment of the patient

 

Domain

Measure

pain

VAS scaled from 0 to 100

function

BASFI (functional index) scaled from 0 to 100

inflammation

mean of (a) severity of morning stiffness from 0 to 100 and (b) duration of morning stiffness with 120 minutes scored 100, or points equal (5 / 6 * minutes) up to 100 maximum

global assessment

overall status scaled from 0 to 100

 

where:

• Scales are 0 to 100 with 0 absent and 100 very severe (extreme, worst imaginable).

• Scaling pain can be done in 3 ways - (a) anchored at equal intervals for mild, moderate, severe and extreme, (b) anchored at increasing intervals reflecting the greater impact of greater pain, (c) logarithmic (linear but exponential significance).

 

A partial remission was defined as scores < 20 (scaled 0 to 100) for all 4 domains.

 

A modification would be to define a complete remission as a score of 0 in all 4 domains.


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Specialty

Objective

ICD-10