Axial Spondyloarthritis Registry
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Axial Spondyloarthritis Registry
IRAS ID
152445
Contact name
Nicola Goodson
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) is a group of inflammatory diseases that cause arthritis of the spine. They tend to affect younger patients and can be disabling and difficult to manage.
The most common axSpA is ankylosing spondylitis (AS), which affects around 1 in 1,000 people in the UK. In addition to the spine, axSpA can affect the attachment sites of tendons and ligaments to bone (enthesitis), bowels (IBD), and the eyes (uveitis).Chronic inflammation in axSpA can lead to development of other disease burdens (comorbidities). The most common comorbidities are osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Identifying and understanding them will improve the management of this condition.
At Aintree University Hospital, the rheumatology department keeps a pseudo-anonymised clinical audit database with the aim of improving quality of care and the systematic enquiry and documentation relating to CVD, IBD, osteoporosis and treatment response. Data is entered from electronic casenotes and clinic letters. By designing a protocol which securely extracts fully anonymised data, The wealth of data stored on this database is invaluable for answering many epidemiological questions.
The aim of this study is to use fully anonymised data from the clinical audit database to answer the following observational research questions for this patient population:
1. What is the prevalence of, and risk factors for, osteoporosis/osteopenia and how effective is antero-posterior DEXA scans in their diagnosis.
2. What is the effect of cigarette smoking on disease activity and response to anti-TNF therapy.
3. What is the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency and relationship with disease activity and response to anti-TNF therapy.
4. What is the prevalence and characteristics of gastro-intestinal symptoms.REC name
London - Brent Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1519
Date of REC Opinion
26 Aug 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion