title: Development of comprehensive disease assessment in systemic vasculitis.
abstract: The systemic vasculitides are multisystem disorders with considerable mortality and morbidity and frequent relapses. In the absence of reliable serological markers, accurate clinical tools are required to assess disease activity and damage for treatment decisions, and for the performance of clinical trials. This article reviews and summarises the development and use of disease assessment tools for determining activity and damage in systemic vasculitis and reports ongoing initiatives for further development of disease assessment tools. A literature search was conducted using PubMed and reference lists for vasculitis, assessment, clinical trials, outcome and prognosis. The findings indicate that comprehensive disease assessment in vasculitis requires documentation of disease activity, chronic irreversible damage and impairment of function.
authors.affiliation: Botnar Research Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Flossmann
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bacon
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: de Groot
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jayne
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Westman
authors.forename: Raashid
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luqmani
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014657:Vasculitis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000534:rehabilitation