Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion General Message Board for Ankylosing Spondylitis and Related Diseases Amgen Study -- Drizzit Post 02/18/06

I did another search in the medical literature and found a paper you might be interested in. Many of the literature cannot be accessed for free, but this one can. More recent, 2011 and a good study design. I would trust these numbers of the numbers that Drizzit quoted since we don't know the origin of those numbers and they are from an older data set.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009382/

Ankylosing Spondylitis: Patterns of Radiographic Involvement—A Re-examination of Accepted Principles in a Cohort of 769 Patients

Jang JH, Ward MM, Rucker AN, Reveille JD, Davis JC Jr, Weisman MH, Learch TJ.

Radiology. 2011 Jan;258(1):192-8. doi: 10.1148/radiol.10100426. Epub 2010 Oct 22.

Well designed study, but they don't discuss progression and treatment.

Its a common and well known study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.11325/pdf

In any event definitions have changed since 2012.

These kind of discussions are actually pretty silly. They have. no effect on your symptoms and very little on your treatment.

Yes, not even real information because so many people with mild AS, are just living life undiagnosed so it doesn't seem this would ever be a real number.

I would be considered mild with over 20 years of indiagnosed symptoms and then when it turned severe I guess I would move to severe?

Anna

TNTLAMB

I'm not sure this was the report I was looking for but clearly good information by the company.

I must differ on the above comment as I see over and over others that haven't proven any fusion be denied treatment. I went through that last year when who I think is a really good Rheumy hit the roof over my films after hearing I had been denied treatment and even told it was in my head but now after years of that, have damage in my neck, thoracic and SI/Hip areas.

I don't know what kind of radiologic evidence you have but for the early birds out there, it can really cause havoc before someone believes them.

CentralGaGal if I remember right the point was, as anna indicates, that most people with AS do not see full fusion and many don't progress to severe disease. I also agree with TNF that stats like that should not be used to set individual treatment. However I see your point though if you have a doc who won't diagnose you without signs of fusion. That is a battle many on here have fought to get proper treatment


These numbers were not part of a study by Amgen but were quoted by Amgen when looking at the TNF market for AS patients. I will see if I can dig them up but that was awhile ago.

I think it was a slide show from a presentation at EULAR but I will have to dig. I doubt I still have the slide show info

I'm curious as to what exactly you are defining as treatment? If it's biologics I think you are defining treatment incorrectly. Lets be clear, the US is really one of very few places in the world where biologics are first line treatments. In most places in the world this isn't the case. As I understand from my rheumy who is a Fellow and active on the world scene, there is no agreement that they should be first line treatments....

Your Rheumy is very Much behind the times. EULAR substantially changed their protocols years ago Heres the discussion:http://m.ard.bmj.com/content/70/6/896.full

The US on the otherhand still utilizes step thaerapy and DMARDs in far too many instances