Saccon F, Zen M, Gatto M, et al. - The present study was conducted to explore the performance of these items, alone or in combination, in defining remission and in predicting SLICC/ACR Damage Index. Seven potential definitions of remission were investigated in SLE patients followed-up for ≥5 years: prednisone (PDN) ≤5 mg/day; physician's global assessment (PGA) <0.5; SLE Disease Activity Index (cSLEDAI)=0; PGA <0.5 plus PDN ≤5 mg/day; cSLEDAI=0 plus PGA <0.5; cSLEDAI=0 plus PDN ≤5 mg/day; cSLEDAI=0 plus PDN ≤5 mg/day plus PGA <0.5. Poisson regression analysis was conducted to assess the impact of of these definitions on damage; the best performance was distinguished as the lowest Akaike and Bayesian information criterion. They estimated positive and negative predictive values in distinguishing no damage increase. A total of 646 patients were included (mean±SD disease duration 9.2±6.9 years). While displaying the best performance in predicting damage progression in the short-to-mid-term follow-up, cSLEDAI=0 is the most attainable definition of remission.