Assessment of disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis by multi-biomarker disease activity (MBDA) score

Abstract

For assessing clinical disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), several composite measures of physical findings, patents’/evaluators’ visual analog scales, and acute phase reactants has been used, contributing to advance in therapies through many clinical trials. However, more objective indices have been desired due to subjectivity in conventional indices. The Multi-Biomarker Disease Activity (MBDA) score is a novel blood-test based disease activity score of single integer ranging 1-100, derived from pre-specified algorithms in combination with 12 serum biomarkers (VCAM-1, EGF, VEGF-A, IL-6, TNFRI, YKL-40, MMP-1, MMP-3, leptin, resistin, SAA, CRP). The MBDA score not only reflects disease activity in RA, but also is predictive for radiographic progression and risk of flare after drug reduction. Herein we review clinical usefulness of the MBDA score in RA.