American College of Rheumatology (ACR) features an article with Medha Barbhaiya, MD, MPH, rheumatologist at HSS, discussing a new classification criteria for antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) at ACR Convergence 2022. 

“Today we present our international, multidisciplinary effort to develop new, rigorous, consensus- and evidence-based, highly specific classification criteria to identify patients with high likelihood of APS for clinical research,” said Dr. Barbhaiya.

Dr. Barbhaiya, along with HSS rheumatologist Doruk Erkan, MD, MPH, and Stéphane Zuily, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, at Lorraine University, France, presented the methodology, novel aspects, and application of the draft criteria on Sunday, 11/13. 

“The goal for classification is to identify a well-defined study sample representative of the majority,” said Dr. Barbhaiya. “We tried to achieve high specificity, sometimes at the cost of sensitivity.”

The methodology involved four phases—item generation, item reduction, weighting of items and threshold identification, and validation—each balancing expert-based and data-driven processes.

Dr. Barbhaiya listed several strengths of the methodology, such as rigorous clinical and laboratory criteria definitions and international cases, and the inclusion of international cases that captured the APS spectrum, reducing the risk of selection bias and increasing generalizability.

Read the full article at acrconvergencetoday.org/.

Additional coverage: medscape.com/.  and the-rheumatologist.org/.