VAS & DAS28 scores???

purplesparkle

Hi everyone, I have just got a letter from the rheumatologist saying various things and it mentions I have 14 tender joints, zero swollen joints but swelling of the left stenoclavicular joint with a VAS score of 80 ESR of 5 (i'm assuming this means no inflammation) which gives a DAS28 score of 4.34???? It's all very confusing, can anyone explain what it means? :?:

tillytop

Hello Purplesparkle

It is confusing I know! Don't know anything about VAS scores but I have put a link below to the DAS booklet published by the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society which explains how the DAS scoring system works and what the numbers mean. According to the booklet a DAS score of 3.2 - 5.1 indicates "moderate disease activity".

http://www.nras.org.uk/help_for_you/publications/publication_detail.aspx?id=a0B80000005CJTnEAO

Tillyxxx

scattered

The VAS stand for Visual Analogue Score and is the score you get when you are asked to place a cross on a 10cm line about how much your RA has affected you during the past week. Yours is 80 out of a possible hundred.

ESR is a measure of inflammation and generally anything above 15 shows inflammation. Yours was 5, so no inflammation.

The DAS 28 is a score of how active your disease is based on the number of swollen joints, tender joints, ESR or CRP, and VAS. You had 14 tender joints out of 28, no swollen joints out of 28, an ESR of 5 and a VAS of 80. They put all that into a magic mathematic formula which gives the overall DAS 28 score. Your DAS28 is 4.34 which shows some disease activity but isn't too bad.

A DAS28 score greater than 5.1 implies active disease, less than 3.2 well controlled disease, and less than 2.6 remission.

Often the DAS 28 score bears no relation to how you actually feel, so while the score might be moderate you can still feel really lousey!

Hope that helps.

purplesparkle

Thanks this really has helped me to understand it a bit better

I have looked at the link Tilly and it says 3.2 to 5.1 Moderate disease activity. May merit change in therapy for some patients, this may be why they then gave me the steriod injection?????? Which is the best thing I have ever been given!

Thanks again x

valval

glad you asked as had no idea what they ment thanks

purplesparkle

That's ok Valval, I haven't a clue about most of what's going on with me to be honest-so I'm really glad I found this site x

ritwren

Thanks from me too. I find it all difficult to understand.