Simplified Radiographic Damage Index for Affected Joints in Chronic Gouty Arthritis

摘要

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a new radiographic damage scoring method (DAmagE index of GoUt; DAEGU) in chronic gout using plain radiography. Two independent observers scored foot x-rays from 15 patients with chronic gout according to the DAEGU method and the modified Sharp/van der Heijde (SvdH) method. The 10 metatarsophalangeal (MTP) and 2 interphalangeal (IP) joints of the first toes of both feet were scored to assess the degrees of erosion and joint space narrowing (JSN). The intraobserver and interobserver reliabilities were analyzed by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and minimal detectable change (MDC). The correlation between the DAEGU and SvdH methods was analyzed by calculating the Spearman's rho correlation coefficients and Kappa coefficients. The DAEGU method was found to be highly reproducible (0.945–0.987 for the intraobserver and 0.993–0.996 for the interobserver ICC values). The erosion, JSN, and total scores exhibited strong positive correlations between the DAEGU and SvdH methods and also within each method ( r = 0.860–0.969, P Go to: Graphical Abstract