Abstract
Quantitative clinical monitoring of patients with musculoskeletal conditions should be included in the infrastructure of every clinical practice. Quantitative monitoring improves the physician’s capacity to assess and document a patient’s clinical status and changes over time, which leads to greater accuracy in the underlying rationale for clinical decisions. Furthermore, routine data collection in consecutive patients facilitates analyses of groups of patients over long periods in usual care, beyond information that can be obtained from randomized clinical trials. (Turk J Rheumatol 2010; 25: 1-11)
Publisher
The Archives of Rheumatology
Reference136 articles.
1. Smith T. Questions on clinical trials (editorial). Br Med J 1983; 287: 569.
2. Luukkainen R, Kajander A, Isomäki H. Treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (letter). Br Med J 1978; 2: 1501.
3. Möttönen T, Hannonen P, Leirisalo-Repo M, Nissilä M, Kautiainen H, Korpela M et al. Comparison of combination therapy with single-drug therapy in early rheumatoid arthritis: A randomised trial. FIN-RACo trial group. Lancet 1999; 353: 1568-73.
4. Makinen H, Kautiainen H, Hannonen P, Mottonen T, Leirisalo-Repo M, Laasonen L et al. Sustained remission and reduced radiographic progression with combination disease modifying antirheumatic drugs in early rheumatoid arthritis. J Rheumatol 2007; 34: 316-21.
5. Grigor C, Capell H, Stirling A, McMahon AD, Lock P, Vallance R et al. Effect of a treatment strategy of tight control for rheumatoid arthritis (the TICORA study): a single-blind randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2004; 364: 263-9.