A new rate of prevalence of axial spondyloarthritis (SpA) has been published in the journal, “Arthritis Care & Research”. The data comes directly from the Center of Disease Control’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) program, which was also co-funded by the Spondylitis Association of America (SAA) and the Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN).
Axial spondyloarthritis is “a form of spondyloarthritis in which the predominant symptom is back pain, and where radiographic sacroiliitis might or might not be present. If definite radiographic sacroiliitis on plain X-rays is present, the disease can be classified as Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).”
The study finds that as much as 1% of the adult United States population may have axial spondyloarthritis. Thus, this means that as many as 2.7 million adults may be affected by the disease. However, the study authors note that “current U.S. SpA prevalence estimates may be lower than the true value” because of the way the data was collected. Thus, even more may be affected than is estimated in the study.
SpA is now shown to be at least as prevalent as rheumatoid arthritis, but still an under recognized condition.
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