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AMSTERDAM – New classification criteria for antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)–associated vasculitides have been drafted and now need formal review by the American College of Rheumatology and the European League Against Rheumatism before they can be put into practice.
According to Joanna Robson, MBBS, PhD, the chair of the DCVAS steering committee, these new criteria better “reflect current practice by incorporating, but not relying on, ANCA testing and advanced imaging.”
“The old criteria were actually produced in the early 1990s and since then we’ve had further thinking about the different subtypes of systemic vasculitis,” explained Dr. Robson of the University of the West of England in Bristol. There has also been a consensus conference held at Chapel Hill (Arthritis Rheum 2013;65[1]:1-11) which identified MPA as a separate entity, and ANCA testing has become routine practice. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are also now used to help differentiate between the different vasculitides.
“This really has been a collaborative, multinational effort,” Dr. Robson said at the European Congress of Rheumatology. To develop the draft criteria, data collated from 135 sites in 32 countries on more than 2,000 patients were used. These had been collected as part of the ACR/EULAR–run DCVAS study, which has been coordinated at the University of Oxford since 2011.
Three phases were used to develop these criteria: first an expert panel reviewed all cases in the DCVAS to identify those that they felt were attributable to small vessel vasculitis. Second, variables that might be appropriate to use in the models were examined, with more than 8,000 individual DVCAS items considered and then whittled down to 91 items and then sifted again to form a clear set of 10 or fewer items. Third, statistical analyses combined with expert review were used to develop the criteria and then validate these.
Dr. Robson reported that of 2,871 cases identified as ANCA-associated vasculitis, 2,072 (72%) were agreed upon by the expert review panel. Of these, there were 724 cases of GPA, 291 of MPA, 226 of EGPA, and around 300 cases of other small vessel vasculitis or polyarteritis nodosa. To develop the criteria the GPA cases were used as the “cases” and the other types of vasculitis as the comparators, Dr. Robson explained.
For GPA, MPA, and EGPA a set of items (10, 6, and 7, respectively) were derived and scored, positively or negatively, and a cutoff determined at which a classification of the particular vasculitis could be made. During discussion, Dr. Robson noted that the threshold score for a classification of EGPA (greater than or equal to 6) had been set slightly higher than for GPA or MPA (both greater than or equal to 5) “because of the clinical problem of there being very close comparators which can actually mimic EGPA.” This is where the negative scoring of some items used in these criteria are very important, she said.
The 10-item GPA criteria included three clinical (such as the presence of bloody nasal discharge upon examination) and seven investigational (such as cANCA positivity) items. These criteria were found to have a high sensitivity (92%) and specificity (94%) for identifying GPA.
The six-item MPA criteria included one clinical item (bloody nasal discharge, which was this time attributed a negative score) and five investigational items (with ANCA testing given a higher positive score than for GPA). The sensitivity and specificity of these criteria were a respective 91% and 94%.
Finally, the seven-item EGPA criteria included three clinical items (including obstructive airways disease and nasal polyps) and four investigational items (with ANCA positivity given a negative score). These criteria had an 85% sensitivity and 99% specificity for EGPA.
Dr. Robson emphasized that all of these classification criteria were to be used only after exclusion of other possible causes of vasculitis, such as infection, malignancy, or other autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, and a “diagnosis of small- or medium-vessel vasculitis has been made.”
These criteria are to help classify into the subtypes of vasculitis “primarily for the purpose of clinical trials,” she said. “The next steps are review by the EULAR and ACR committee, and only on final approval will these criteria be ready to use.”
DCVAS is sponsored by the University of Oxford (England) with funding from the European League Against Rheumatism, the American College of Rheumatology, and the Vasculitis Foundation. Dr. Robson had no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Robson JC et al. EULAR 2018. Abstract OP0021.
AMSTERDAM – New classification criteria for antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)–associated vasculitides have been drafted and now need formal review by the American College of Rheumatology and the European League Against Rheumatism before they can be put into practice.
According to Joanna Robson, MBBS, PhD, the chair of the DCVAS steering committee, these new criteria better “reflect current practice by incorporating, but not relying on, ANCA testing and advanced imaging.”
“The old criteria were actually produced in the early 1990s and since then we’ve had further thinking about the different subtypes of systemic vasculitis,” explained Dr. Robson of the University of the West of England in Bristol. There has also been a consensus conference held at Chapel Hill (Arthritis Rheum 2013;65[1]:1-11) which identified MPA as a separate entity, and ANCA testing has become routine practice. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are also now used to help differentiate between the different vasculitides.
“This really has been a collaborative, multinational effort,” Dr. Robson said at the European Congress of Rheumatology. To develop the draft criteria, data collated from 135 sites in 32 countries on more than 2,000 patients were used. These had been collected as part of the ACR/EULAR–run DCVAS study, which has been coordinated at the University of Oxford since 2011.
Three phases were used to develop these criteria: first an expert panel reviewed all cases in the DCVAS to identify those that they felt were attributable to small vessel vasculitis. Second, variables that might be appropriate to use in the models were examined, with more than 8,000 individual DVCAS items considered and then whittled down to 91 items and then sifted again to form a clear set of 10 or fewer items. Third, statistical analyses combined with expert review were used to develop the criteria and then validate these.
Dr. Robson reported that of 2,871 cases identified as ANCA-associated vasculitis, 2,072 (72%) were agreed upon by the expert review panel. Of these, there were 724 cases of GPA, 291 of MPA, 226 of EGPA, and around 300 cases of other small vessel vasculitis or polyarteritis nodosa. To develop the criteria the GPA cases were used as the “cases” and the other types of vasculitis as the comparators, Dr. Robson explained.
For GPA, MPA, and EGPA a set of items (10, 6, and 7, respectively) were derived and scored, positively or negatively, and a cutoff determined at which a classification of the particular vasculitis could be made. During discussion, Dr. Robson noted that the threshold score for a classification of EGPA (greater than or equal to 6) had been set slightly higher than for GPA or MPA (both greater than or equal to 5) “because of the clinical problem of there being very close comparators which can actually mimic EGPA.” This is where the negative scoring of some items used in these criteria are very important, she said.
The 10-item GPA criteria included three clinical (such as the presence of bloody nasal discharge upon examination) and seven investigational (such as cANCA positivity) items. These criteria were found to have a high sensitivity (92%) and specificity (94%) for identifying GPA.
The six-item MPA criteria included one clinical item (bloody nasal discharge, which was this time attributed a negative score) and five investigational items (with ANCA testing given a higher positive score than for GPA). The sensitivity and specificity of these criteria were a respective 91% and 94%.
Finally, the seven-item EGPA criteria included three clinical items (including obstructive airways disease and nasal polyps) and four investigational items (with ANCA positivity given a negative score). These criteria had an 85% sensitivity and 99% specificity for EGPA.
Dr. Robson emphasized that all of these classification criteria were to be used only after exclusion of other possible causes of vasculitis, such as infection, malignancy, or other autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, and a “diagnosis of small- or medium-vessel vasculitis has been made.”
These criteria are to help classify into the subtypes of vasculitis “primarily for the purpose of clinical trials,” she said. “The next steps are review by the EULAR and ACR committee, and only on final approval will these criteria be ready to use.”
DCVAS is sponsored by the University of Oxford (England) with funding from the European League Against Rheumatism, the American College of Rheumatology, and the Vasculitis Foundation. Dr. Robson had no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Robson JC et al. EULAR 2018. Abstract OP0021.
AMSTERDAM – New classification criteria for antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)–associated vasculitides have been drafted and now need formal review by the American College of Rheumatology and the European League Against Rheumatism before they can be put into practice.
According to Joanna Robson, MBBS, PhD, the chair of the DCVAS steering committee, these new criteria better “reflect current practice by incorporating, but not relying on, ANCA testing and advanced imaging.”
“The old criteria were actually produced in the early 1990s and since then we’ve had further thinking about the different subtypes of systemic vasculitis,” explained Dr. Robson of the University of the West of England in Bristol. There has also been a consensus conference held at Chapel Hill (Arthritis Rheum 2013;65[1]:1-11) which identified MPA as a separate entity, and ANCA testing has become routine practice. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are also now used to help differentiate between the different vasculitides.
“This really has been a collaborative, multinational effort,” Dr. Robson said at the European Congress of Rheumatology. To develop the draft criteria, data collated from 135 sites in 32 countries on more than 2,000 patients were used. These had been collected as part of the ACR/EULAR–run DCVAS study, which has been coordinated at the University of Oxford since 2011.
Three phases were used to develop these criteria: first an expert panel reviewed all cases in the DCVAS to identify those that they felt were attributable to small vessel vasculitis. Second, variables that might be appropriate to use in the models were examined, with more than 8,000 individual DVCAS items considered and then whittled down to 91 items and then sifted again to form a clear set of 10 or fewer items. Third, statistical analyses combined with expert review were used to develop the criteria and then validate these.
Dr. Robson reported that of 2,871 cases identified as ANCA-associated vasculitis, 2,072 (72%) were agreed upon by the expert review panel. Of these, there were 724 cases of GPA, 291 of MPA, 226 of EGPA, and around 300 cases of other small vessel vasculitis or polyarteritis nodosa. To develop the criteria the GPA cases were used as the “cases” and the other types of vasculitis as the comparators, Dr. Robson explained.
For GPA, MPA, and EGPA a set of items (10, 6, and 7, respectively) were derived and scored, positively or negatively, and a cutoff determined at which a classification of the particular vasculitis could be made. During discussion, Dr. Robson noted that the threshold score for a classification of EGPA (greater than or equal to 6) had been set slightly higher than for GPA or MPA (both greater than or equal to 5) “because of the clinical problem of there being very close comparators which can actually mimic EGPA.” This is where the negative scoring of some items used in these criteria are very important, she said.
The 10-item GPA criteria included three clinical (such as the presence of bloody nasal discharge upon examination) and seven investigational (such as cANCA positivity) items. These criteria were found to have a high sensitivity (92%) and specificity (94%) for identifying GPA.
The six-item MPA criteria included one clinical item (bloody nasal discharge, which was this time attributed a negative score) and five investigational items (with ANCA testing given a higher positive score than for GPA). The sensitivity and specificity of these criteria were a respective 91% and 94%.
Finally, the seven-item EGPA criteria included three clinical items (including obstructive airways disease and nasal polyps) and four investigational items (with ANCA positivity given a negative score). These criteria had an 85% sensitivity and 99% specificity for EGPA.
Dr. Robson emphasized that all of these classification criteria were to be used only after exclusion of other possible causes of vasculitis, such as infection, malignancy, or other autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, and a “diagnosis of small- or medium-vessel vasculitis has been made.”
These criteria are to help classify into the subtypes of vasculitis “primarily for the purpose of clinical trials,” she said. “The next steps are review by the EULAR and ACR committee, and only on final approval will these criteria be ready to use.”
DCVAS is sponsored by the University of Oxford (England) with funding from the European League Against Rheumatism, the American College of Rheumatology, and the Vasculitis Foundation. Dr. Robson had no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Robson JC et al. EULAR 2018. Abstract OP0021.
REPORTING FROM THE EULAR 2018 CONGRESS
Key clinical point: New classification criteria for ANCA-associated vasculitides have been drafted and now need formal review before they are ready to use.
Major finding: Analysis of the 10-, 6-, and 7-item GPA, MPA, and EGPA criteria showed a respective 92%, 94%, and 91% sensitivity and 94%, 85%, and 99% specificity.
Study details: The Diagnostic and Classification Criteria in Vasculitis (DCVAS) observational study of more than 6,000 cases of vasculitides and comparators.
Disclosures: DCVAS is sponsored by the University of Oxford (England) with funding from the American College of Rheumatology, the European League Against Rheumatism, and the Vasculitis Foundation. Dr. Robson had no relevant financial disclosures.
Source: Robson JC et al. EULAR 2018. Abstract OP0021.