Abstract
BackgroundAlthough drug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently improved, treating patients with established disease, whose hands have three major deformities (thumb deformity, finger deformities, and ulnar drift), remains a challenge. The underlying complex pathophysiology makes understanding these deformities difficult, and comprehensive assessment methods require accumulated skill with long learning curves. We aimed to establish a simpler composite method to understand the pathophysiology of and alterations in the hand deformities of patients with RA.MethodsWe established a rheumatoid hand cohort in 2004 and clinically evaluated 134 hands (67 patients). We repeated the evaluations in 2009 (100 hands of 52 patients) and 2015 (63 hands of 37 patients) after case exclusion. Thumb deformities, finger deformities (swan-neck and boutonnière deformity), and ulnar drift were semi-quantitated and entered as parameters into a two-step cross-sectional cluster analysis for the data in 2004. The parameters in each cluster were plotted at each evaluation point. Two-way analysis of covariance was used to examine whether differences existed between evaluation points and clusters of deformity parameters.ResultsFive clusters most appropriately described hand deformity: (i) cluster 1, minimal deformity; (ii) cluster 2, type 1 thumb deformity; (iii) cluster 3, thumb deformity and severe boutonnière deformity; (iv) cluster 4, type 2 or 3 thumb deformity and severe ulnar drift; and (v) cluster 5, thumb deformity and severe swan-neck deformity. Clusters 1 and 2 had higher function than cluster 5, and cluster 3 had moderate function. Clusters 1–4 had similar disease duration but showed different paths of deformity progression from disease onset. Clusters 1 and 2 represented conservative deformity parameters and clusters 3, 4, and 5 represented progressive deformity parameters. Over time, thumb deformity evolved into other types of deformities and swan-neck deformity worsened significantly.ConclusionsOur comprehensive analysis identified five deformity patterns and a progressive course in the rheumatoid hand. Knowledge of the characteristics of progressive deformity parameters may allow rheumatologists to more easily implement practical interventions and determine functional prognosis.
Highlights
IntroductionDrug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently improved, treating patients with established disease, whose hands have three major deformities (thumb deformity, finger deformities, and ulnar drift), remains a challenge
Drug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently improved, treating patients with established disease, whose hands have three major deformities, remains a challenge
Rheumatoid hand, the term used to describe the characteristic deformities in the hands of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), typically includes varying degrees of thumb deformity, finger deformities, and ulnar drift
Summary
Drug therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently improved, treating patients with established disease, whose hands have three major deformities (thumb deformity, finger deformities, and ulnar drift), remains a challenge. We aimed to establish a simpler composite method to understand the pathophysiology of and alterations in the hand deformities of patients with RA. It remains difficult to understand patients’ overall pathophysiological condition (deformity presence or absence, location and severity, and alterations over time) to determine the most relevant treatment options. The authors did not evaluate thumb deformity and did not assess severity of finger deformities, they demonstrated that deformities were present in regular patterns such as “ulnar drift combined with swan-neck deformity.”. Another study described deformity severity in patients with established RA over 5 years of observation and found that overall deformities worsened over time [4]. The authors evaluated thumb deformity using the Nalebuff classification system (type 1–6) [5], finger swan-neck deformity using the Nalebuff classification (type 1–4) [6], finger boutonnière deformity using the Nalebuff classification (stage 1–3), and ulnar drift using the authors’ own method [7], which quantitated drift by evaluating joint parameters in an extended cohort [8]
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