DEVELOPMENT AND INITIAL VALIDATION OF THE SYSTEMIC JADAS, A NEW COMPOSITE DISEASE ACTIVITY SCORE FOR SYSTEMIC JUVENILE IDIOPATHIC ARTHRITIS

Background: Juvenile Arthritis Disease Activity Score (JADAS) has gained increasing popularity for the measurement of the level of disease activity in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). However, so far the JADAS has been validated only in children with the non-systemic categories of JIA. Objectives: To develop and validate the systemic JADAS (sJADAS), a new version of the JADAS specific to systemic JIA (sJIA). Methods: The sJADAS is made up by adding a fifth item, named Systemic Manifestation Score (SMS), to the four items included in the original tool (physician global assessment of disease activity, parent/patient global assessment of well-being, active joint count and ery…