Ann Rheum Dis: General Assessment of Physicians' Impact of Systemic Lupus Disease Activity (PGA)

The study was designed to assess the impact of laboratory test results on the overall assessment (PGA) scores of active physicians for systemic lupus diseasesent 50 clinical cases to a group of international lupus specialists through an online surveyRespondents scored each case PGA (pre- and post-laboratory PGAs) before and after they knew the results of the lab testDetermine consistency between each evaluator and the association between pre- and post-laboratory PGAs, and PGAs and systemic lupus disease activity index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K)Respondents were also asked about the factors they identified as the PGAcompleted 60 surveysThe PGA reliability among evaluators is excellent (pre-laboratory group correlation coefficient (ICC) 0.98; post-laboratory ICC 0.99)Post-lab PGAs are higher than pre-lab PGAs: pre-lab PGA median (1.05), post-lab PGA 1 (1.3) (p0.001), and difference median (IQR) 0.2 (0.45)Overall, all abnormal laboratory test results, including elevated levels of anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies (dsDNA) and tonic reduction, affect EDT assessmentThe worst case characteristics of pre-laboratory and post-laboratory PGAs are laboratory test results that reflect nephritis and/or hematological performanceBoth pre- and post-laboratory PGAs are associated with SLEDAI-2KHowever, post-lab PGAs are more correlated with SLEDAI-2KA number of factors influence the determination of the PGASome factors are taken into account by the vast majority of lupus experts, while other factors are dividedthe study found that PGAs evaluators among a group of international lupus experts were extremely reliablePost-lab PGA scores were higher than pre-lab PGA and more correlated with SLEDAI-2K The results suggest that PGA scores should be based on knowledge of the relevant laboratory results