Diagnosis of fibromyalgia: comparison of the 2011/2016 ACR and AAPT criteria and validation of the modified Fibromyalgia Assessment Status.

Objective: To compare the concordance of the three diagnostic criteria, respectively the 2011 ACR criteria (ACR 2011 Cr), the ACR 2016 criteria (ACR 2016 Cr) and the Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations Innovations Opportunities and Networks (ACTTION)-APS Pain Taxonomy criteria (AAPT Cr), and to explore the performance of an additional set of criteria, the modified Fibromyalgia Assessment Status (FAS 2019 modCr), in the diagnosis of FM syndrome.

Methods: Consecutive patients with chronic widespread pain, referred by the primary care setting, underwent rheumatologic assessment that established the presence or not of FM and were investigated through the four sets of proposed criteria. For the FAS 2019 modCr, discriminant validity to distinguish patients with FM and non-FM was assessed with receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.

The Italian Fibromyalgia Registry: a new way of using routine real-world data concerning patient-reported disease status in healthcare research and clinical practice.

Objectives: Fibromyalgia (FM), the most frequently encountered cause of widespread musculoskeletal pain, affects an estimated 2% of the general Italian population. However, it is not a homogeneous clinical entity, and a number of interacting factors can influence patient prognosis and the outcomes of standardised treatment programmes. Registries are a source of high-quality data for clinical research, but relating this information to individual patients is technically challenging.

Are the ACR 2010 diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia better than the 1990 criteria?

Fibromyalgia (FM) is difficult to diagnose and manage chronic pain condition whose symptoms have no clear pathophysiological cause, although it is thought that patient hypersensitivity to a range of stimuli may give rise to mechanical hyperalgesia as a result of altered central nociceptive processing. The 1990 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) classification criteria, which have been widely used in clinical practice, require the existence of chronic widespread pain (CWP) for >3months, and the presence of at least 11 out of 18 specified tender points upon digital palpation, although this latter criterion has long been criticised. The newer 2010 ACR diagnostic criteria state that FM can be defined as CWP associated with somatic symptoms, and recommend the use of a widespread pain index and a scale to rate symptom severity.