Improvement of delayed diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis in a Chinese population

[...]there is still limited knowledge of whether the diagnostic delay has been improved in China. [...]we performed a comparative study of two datasets from the same hospital collected over 14 years. According to the 2009 ASAS criteria, we divided patients into those aged under 40 years and over 40 years. [...]there was no significant gender difference in the time to delayed diagnosis among people aged 20 to 30 years before 2009, after 2009, and during the entire time period. [...]we can believe that the delayed diagnosis of SpA in the whole population aged 20 to 30 years has been significantly improved after the change of 2009 diagnostic criteria. [...]delay to diagnosis has improved in the past 14 years in China after the 2009 ASAS criteria application.