Axial spondyloarthritis (SpA), an inflammatory disease of the spine and sacroiliac joints, causes new bone formation that may lead to total ankylosis of the spine. Laura C. Coates, MBChB, PhD, associate professor of rheumatology at the University of Oxford, U.K., and colleagues sought to describe the relationship between the presence of HLA-B27 and the radiographic phenotype of axial SpA. They found patients with axial SpA who were positive for HLA-B27 had more severe radiographic damage than patients who were negative for HLA-B27. These HLA-B27-positive individuals also had more marginal syndesmophytes and more frequent syndesmophyte symmetry than those who were negative for HLA-B27. The investigators published their findings in the June 2021 issue of Arthritis Care & Research.1
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Study Design
The large international, observational, cross-sectional study included a mixed population of individuals with axial psoriatic arthritis (PsA; n=244) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS; n=198) from eight sites in Europe and North America. The investigators gathered basic demographic data, a recent patient-completed disease activity measure (the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index [BASDAI]) and a recent measure of C-reactive protein (CRP).