Simple and comprehensive scores have been developed for people at risk for inflammatory arthritis, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Laurence Duquenne, MD, and colleagues developed scores for predicting inflammatory arthritis in at-risk people using multidimensional biomarkers in a prospective observational cohort study. The simple score was developed using logistic regression, whereas the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator Cox proportional hazards regression was used to develop the comprehensive score. Overall, 148 of the 455 participants (32.5%) developed inflammatory arthritis and 70 (15.4%) developed it within 1 year. The simple score identified 249 low-risk participants and 206 high-risk participants, with a false-negative rate of 5% and a false-positive rate of 72% respectively. A total of 119 high-risk participants and 336 low-risk participants were identified with the comprehensive score, with a false-positive and false-negative rate of 29% and 19%, respectively. Of the high-risk participants, 40% and 71% developed inflammatory arthritis within 1 and 5 years, respectively.
