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Objective. To identify baseline prognostic indicators of disability at 1 year within a contemporary early inflammatory arthritis inception cohort and then develop a clinically useful tool to support early patient education and decision-making.Methods. The Scottish Early Rheumatoid Arthritis (SERA) inception cohort is a multicenter, prospective study of patients with newly presenting RA or undifferentiated arthritis. SERA data were analyzed to determine baseline predictors of disability (defined as a Health Assessment Questionnaire [HAQ] score of ‡1) at 1 year. Clinical and psychosocial baseline exposures were entered into a forward stepwise logistic regression model. The model was externally validated using newly accrued SERA data and subsequently converted into a prediction tool.Results. . External validation (using 113 newly acquired patients) evidenced good discriminative performance with a C statistic of 0.74, and the calibration slope showed no evidence of model overfit (P 5 0.31).Conclusion. In the context of modern early inflammatory arthritis treatment paradigms, predictors of disability at 1 year appear to be dominated by psychosocial rather than more traditional clinical measures. This indicates the potential benefit of early access to nonpharmacologic interventions targeting key psychosocial factors, such as mental health and work disability.The primary concern for many patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or undifferentiated inflammatory arthritis is the functional impact of their disease. Rheumatologists recognize the importance of The opinions and contents contained herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

BackgroundThe Scottish Early Rheumatoid Arthritis (SERA) study is an inception cohort of rheumatoid (RA) and undifferentiated arthritis (UA) patients that aims to provide a contemporary description of phenotype and outcome and facilitate discovery of phenotypic and prognostic biomarkersMethodsDemographic and clinical outcome data are collected from newly diagnosed RA/UA patients every 6 months from around Scotland. Health service utilization data is acquired from Information Services Division, NHS National Services Scotland. Plain radiographs of hands and feet are collected at baseline and 12 months. Additional samples of whole blood, plasma, serum and filtered urine are collected at baseline, 6 and 12 monthsResultsResults are available for 1073 patients; at baseline, 76 % were classified as RA and 24 % as UA. Median time from onset to first review was 163 days (IQR97-323). Methotrexate was first-line DMARD for 75 % patients. Disease activity, functional ability and health-related quality of life improved significantly between baseline and 24 months, however the proportion in any employment fell (51 to 38 %, p = 0.0005). 24 % patients reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depression at baseline. 35/391 (9 %) patients exhibited rapid radiographic progression after 12 months. The SERA Biobank has accrued 60,612 samplesConclusionsIn routine care, newly diagnosed RA/UA patients experience significant improvements in disease activity, functional ability and health-related quality of life but have high rates of psychiatric symptoms and declining employment rates. The co-existence of a multi-domain description of phenotype and a comprehensive biobank will facilitate multi-platform translational research to identify predictive markers of phenotype and prognosisElectronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12891-016-1318-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Multisite PPG pulse technology showed potential diagnostic ability. By using measures of endothelial function, it differentiated SSc from control and PRP subjects with an accuracy of at least 81%. Objective pulse-derived measures of autonomic function and arterial disease in SSc have also been reported in this pilot study.

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HighlightsDermatomyositis in ovarian cancer responds to treatment with neo-adjuvant carboplatin and paclitaxel in conjunction with corticosteroids.Recurrence of dermatomyositis symptoms is often the first sign of relapsed disease.Prognosis of ovarian cancer in context of dermatomyositis is poor.