The composite DAS Score is impractical to use in daily practice: evidence that physicians use the objective component of the DAS in decision making.

Introduction And Background: The disease activity score for 28 joints (DAS28) is widely used for assessing disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis and its use is recommended for establishing the need for anti- tumor necrosis factor drugs, according to British Society for Rheumatology guidelines. However, calculation of the score requires a laboratory measurement of inflammation (either erythrocyte sedimentation rate or C-reactive protein) so that it is not possible to have the actual score when the patient seen in the clinic and, therefore, it is not possible to make immediate treatment decisions based on the DAS28 score.

Methods: This is an audit of clinic-based treatment decisions, collecting data for the DAS28 on consecutive patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Effect of the early use of the anti-tumor necrosis factor adalimumab on the prevention of job loss in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To compare work disability and job loss in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients receiving adalimumab plus methotrexate (adalimumab + MTX) versus MTX alone.

Methods: In this multicenter, randomized, controlled trial, patients with RA for <2 years who had never taken MTX and who self-reported work impairment were randomized to adalimumab + MTX or placebo + MTX for 56 weeks. Primary outcome was job loss of any cause and/or imminent job loss at or after week 16.

Growth and development of children of mothers with leprosy and healthy controls.

Introduction: In the pre-sulphone and early sulphone years children of leprous parents had been followed in a few prospective studies to observe the development of leprosy. No studies were made of the growth and development of these children.

Methods: A prospective, open-ended, cohort study began in 1975 with follow-up of both mothers and their children until 2003.

Development of an assessment tool for dactylitis in patients with psoriatic arthritis.

Objective: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is characterized by inflammatory arthritis in the presence of psoriasis. Certain clinical features help characterize this disorder, one of which is dactylitis. Hitherto an instrument for quantifying dactylitis has not been developed.