Visual assessment of the spine bruckel instrument, a novel status tool to reflect appearance of the spine in patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

Objective. The Visual Assessment of the Spine Bruckel Instrument (VASBI) is a new status tool developed by the Spondylitis Association of America and the University of Toronto to reflect spinal appearance in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Our objective was to validate the VASBI according to the Outcome Measures in Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinical Trials filter (truth, discrimination, and feasibility). Methods. Three hundred patients with AS were asked to rate their degree of perceived spinal deformity using the VASBI. To evaluate construct validity, VASBI scores were compared with functional outcome, spinal mobility, and radiographic spinal damage. Test-retest reliability was evaluated using kappa statistic (kappa). Results. Patient VASBI demonstrated strong correlation with spinal mobility (r = 0.543) and moderate correlation with functional impairment (r = 0.490) and structural damage (r = 0.309). Reliability for VASBI was very good (kappa = 0.973, p < 0.001). Conclusion. The VASBI is a novel tool with practical applications in a busy clinical setting as it simplifies assessment of AS spinal deformity. Our study demonstrates that the VASBI has good feasibility, construct validity, and reliability. (First Release Feb 15 2010; J Rheumatol 2010;37:628-32; doi:10.3899/jrheum.090548)