Spondyloarthritis: Characterization of a cohort. Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital. Medellín, Colombia

Introduction Spondyloarthritis is a group of chronic inflammatory diseases. Several factors of the disease remain unknown, including clinical and radiological behavior, the demographic characteristics and burden of disease in Colombian patients. Objective To characterize the demographic aspects, the clinical and paraclinical behaviour, and the therapeutic requirements of a cohort of patients with spondyloarthritis followed-up in the Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2017. Methodology Cohort study. The population was characteriszed using descriptive statistics, qualitative variables using simple and relative frequencies, and quantitative variables using means and standard deviation or medians with their interquartile ranges. Results The cohort consisted of 181 patients, 100 men (54.9%) and 81 women (44.5%). Just under one half (45.1%) had ankylosing spondylitis, 18.1% undifferentiated spondyloarthritis, 17.1% psoriatic arthropathy, 14.8% reactive arthritis, and 4.4% inflammatory bowel disease. More than two-thirds (69.8%) of the patients had peripheral manifestations, and 67% had axial. A positive HLAB27 was observed in 55.6% of patients. The MRI showed acute and chronic changes in the sacroiliac in 69% and 37%, respectively, with radiological sacroiliitis being observed in 59.5% of cases. The large majority (91.1%) of the patients were treated with NSAIDs, 60.1% with sulfasalazine, 43.4% with COX2 inhibitors, and 33.7% with methotrexate. TNFα inhibitors were required by 56.6% of the subjects 3 years after the onset of symptoms. The most commonly used biological drugs were Adalimumab (31.1%), etanercept (21.7%), infliximab (13.1%), golimumab 6.1%, and certolizumab 0.5%. Conclusions Our population was characterized by a high activity and functional compromise demonstrated by the high scores of BASDAI and BASFI, and because 56.6% of the patients required anti-TNFα agents.