[Follow-up of the patient with spondyloarthropathy]

Spondylarthropathies consist of several disorders: reactive arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, arthritis associated with inflammatory bowel disease, a subgroup of juvenile chronic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis. Their clinical presentation may consist in the following inter-related features: axial involvement, peripheral articular involvement, enthesiopathic lesions, extra-articular disease. The monitoring of these diseases is related more to their clinical presentation than to the precise diagnosis. Modalities for monitoring peripheral arthritis are similar to those of rheumatoid arthritis (essentially based on the number of tender and swollen joints). The modalities of the monitoring of extra-articular features (uveitis, psoriasis,...) are specific to these clinical features and can be categorized in 2 ways: the first one consists in considering the occurrence of the episodes (for example, number of acute anterior uveitis per year), the second one consists in the evaluation of the severity of the clinical features (for example the area of psoriatic skin lesions). Numerous tools have been proposed to evaluate the axial involvement of the disease. The international rheumatologic community (ILAR for International League Against Rheumatism) via specific task force (ASAS for Assessment in Ankylosing Spondylitis) tried to standardize the medical language (at least in clinical research studies) by giving recommendations to evaluate specific domains and within each domain specific tools. Currently, it is generally agreed that pain and functional impairment are the two main domains to consider. For each of these domains, different tools have been proposed (for example the ASFI: Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index and the BASFI: Bath Ankylosing Functional Index are both tools proposed to evaluate the functional impairment). The domain "range of motion" is probably one of the most important for long term outcome in clinical research studies and for facilitating the orthopedic indications in daily practice. Finally, radiological tools permitting the evaluation of the structural damage of the disease are available. They take into account the presence and/or the severity of hip and sacroiliac involvement and also the extent of the spinal syndesmophytes. Longitudinal studies are required to evaluate their clinical relevance.