Background/Purpose: It is known that health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) is impaired. Categories of disease activity levels have been proposed for these patients; however, it is unknown whether these categories might impact these patients’ HRQoL. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the relationship between HRQoL and levels of disease activity in AAV patients.

Methods: We included patients from the Almenara Vasculitis cohort who had at least one visit between December 2022 and November 2024 and had a diagnosis of either microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) or granulomatosis with polyangiitis. Sociodemographic features, disease activity measured with the Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score version 3 score, damage measured with the Vasculitis Damage Index score, and HRQoL assessed by the AAV-PRO (Spanish version) and the Short Form 36 (SF-36), were obtained. Levels of disease activity were categorized as complete remission, clinical remission off therapy (CROffT), clinical remission on therapy (CRonT), low disease activity (LDA) and active disease; these definitions are shown in Table 1. For these analyses, complete remission, CROffT and CRonT were examined together due to the relatively small sample size for each of them individually. Unadjusted and adjusted linear regression models were performed; possible confounders included in the adjusted model were age, sex, ethnicity, education level, socioeconomic status, type of diagnosis, ANCA status, vasculitis damage index, current prednisone dose, current immunosuppressive drug.

Results: Eighty-four patients were enrolled; female sex and MPA were more frequent. In the adjusted analyses, regarding the SF-36, active disease was associated negatively with general health, role emotional and the mental component summary domains; likewise, LDA was negatively associated with role physical. Regarding the AAV-PRO, active disease was positively associated with the treatment side effects domain.

Conclusion: Active disease impacted in the HRQoL as assessed by the-SF36 and the AAV-PRO questionnaires, although the first one was more associated with levels of disease activity.

Table 1. Definitions of levels of disease activity.

Table 2. Unadjusted and adjusted analyses.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/levels-of-disease-activity-and-their-relationship-with-health-related-quality-of-life-in-anca-associated-vasculitis-patients-data-from-the-almenara-vasculitis-cohort/