Disease control in patients with ankylosing spondylitis in real clinical practice in Spain: Results of the MIDAS study

Introduction and objectives: Understanding the disease activity is fundamental to improve patient prog-nosis and patients' quality of life. MiDAS study described disease activity in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) Spanish patients and the proportion of them with controlled disease. Methods: Observational, cross-sectional, multicenter study carried out under conditions of routine clin-ical practice. Adult (>= 18 years) patients with >= 6 months since AS diagnosis treated >= 3 months prior to inclusion. The primary endpoint was the percentage of patients with low disease activity assessed through BASDAI (primary endpoint) and ASDAS-CRP (secondary endpoint). Results: 313 AS patients included: 75.7% male; 78.5% HLA-B*27 positive; mean (SD) baseline age of 50.4 (12.0) years; mean (SD) disease duration of 15.5 (11.6) years; 73.5% were treated with biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), 22.4% with non-biological DMARDs and 53.7% with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, alone or in combination. Monotherapy with biologics and non-biologics was used by 29.7% and 26.8% of patients, respectively. According to BASDAI, 38.0% were in remission (BASDAI <= 2) and 64.5% showed adequate disease control (BASDAI < 4). According to ASDAS-CRP, 29.4% achieved remission (ASDAS-CRP < 1.3) and 28.1% low disease activity (1.3 <= ASDAS-CRP < 2.1). Conclusions: Almost two thirds of the AS patients recruited had low disease activity, with about one third of them being in remission (BASDAI 2, ASDAS-CRP < 1.3). These results highlight the existing room for improvement in treating AS patients in clinical practice. <(c)> 2022 Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U.