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Ethics approval was obtained from our institutional ethics board and all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Consent for publication- Not Applicable.
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests,
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Funding: This research project was funded by the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) with the number 344892.
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Author’s contributions:
Haron Obaid has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Stephan Milosavljevic has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Udoka Okpalauwaekwe has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Brenna Bath has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Catherine Trask has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
David Leswick has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Melanie D. Bussey has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
George Katselis has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Rhonda Loeppky has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Stacey Lovo has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Regina Taylor-Gjevre has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
Bindu Nair has contributed to the (1) conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work if questions arise related to its accuracy or integrity.
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Data availability: The data related to this manuscript is available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgments: Our profound appreciation to the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) for their funding and support of this project and their commitment to seeing improved outcome measures for patients with spondyloarthritis. We would like to thank Brooke Thompson, Paulos Chumala, and all the technicians with the blood chemistry, X-ray and MRI laboratories at our institute for their contributions to this project. We thank all the participants in this study, for their time and effort.