Performance of the Revised Classification Criteria for Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases and Their Overlap Syndromes

OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the performance of the revised classification criteria for assessing different systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases and their overlap syndromes. METHODS: A total of 652 patients with or highly suspected of having systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), polymyositis (PM)/dermatomyositis (DM) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA)were included in this study. The 1997 revised American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the 2019 European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR)/ACR criteria for SLE, the 1980 ACR and the 2013 ACR/EULAR criteria for SSc, the criteria by Bohan and Peter and the 2017 EULAR/ACR criteria for PM/DM, and the 1987 revised ACR and 2011 ACR/EULAR criteria for RA were used for disease classification. RESULTS: The old and new criteria and a clinical diagnosis were used to respectively classify 103, 106 and 105 SLE patients; 35, 47 and 58 SSc patients; 18, 23 and 33 PM/DM patients; and 297, 389 and 468 RA patients. Sensitivity increased from 82.9% to 92.4% in SLE, from 56.9% to 79.3% in SSc, from 54.5% to 66.7% in PM/DM, and from 62.6% to 80.8% in RA. SLE-SSc was the predominant type of clinical overlap syndrome, while SLE-RA was the most classifiable. CONCLUSION: The revised classification criteria for all the diseases showed an improved sensitivity, and SLE-overlap syndrome was predominant, regardless of the criteria sets.