Reply - October 2022

Grayson, Peter C.; Ponte, Cristina; Robson, Joanna C.; Suppiah, Ravi; Judge, Andrew; Hutchings, Andrew; Craven, Anthea; Khalid, Sara; Luqmani, Raashid A.; Watts, Richard A.; Merkel, Peter A.

Abstract

Drs. Yazici and Yazici question a specific aspect of the methodology used to develop and validate the 2022 ACR/EULAR classification criteria for ANCA-associated vasculitides. They state concerns with the fact that patients recruited into the Diagnostic and Classification Criteria in Vasculitis (DCVAS) study were included into either a set of patients used to develop the criteria or an independent set of patients used to validate the criteria. They argue that this methodology constitutes “randomization,” resulting in 2 groups that are not truly independent but rather are perfectly balanced in terms of potential confounding differences. We disagree with this argument because it confuses “random sampling” with “random assignment.” For the DCVAS project, we went to great efforts to recruit 6,991 study participants from 136 sites from around the world. When deriving the classification criteria, we randomly sampled patients from this diverse and representative study population for inclusion into a development set or a validation set.

• Journal Article Type: Letter
• Acceptance Date: Jun 7, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 30, 2022
• Publication Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Journal: Arthritis and Rheumatology
• Print ISSN: 2326-5191
• Electronic ISSN: 2326-5205
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 74
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 1725-1726
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/art.42267
• Keywords: Immunology, Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9960983
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.42267