
The Juvenile Inflammatory Rheumatism network
The JIRcohort is an international network of specialists taking care of patients with Juvenile Inflammatory Disease. The network was created in 2013 by a group of french speaking doctors from Belgium, France and Switzerland. Since then the network has grown and is active in 87 centers from 11 countries. The data of more than 8'700 patients through 35'000 visits has been collected.
The network is built around the JIR platform which allows each member to securely collect follow-up data of his patients. Each member can develop his own research project based on the data from the whole network.
On the modular based platform, specific data can be collected for the following diseases:
Auto-inflammatory disease / Dermatomyositis / Juvenile Inflammatory Arthritis (JIA) / Kawasaki disease / Lupus (SLE) / Still's disease / Uveitis
About the platform

The JIR platform is a secure web application developed as a research tool and as an electronic health record. Every center can decide to use it only for research purpose or also integrate it in the daily clinical work.
The modular system allows to show specific data depending on the patient's center and disease.
A patient mobile application can be linked to the JIR platform to give access to the patient to his health record. With the app he can also add medical information and answer questionnaires.
How to become a JIR member
The JIR network is open to all specialists taking care of at lease 1 patient with a Juvenile Inflammatory Rheumatism.
1
Get the authorization
The first step to become a member is to get the authorization from the legal authorities (Ethic committee) for your center. The JIR team can assist you during this process.
Once the authorizations are received your center will be created on the JIR platform and your account will be created.
2
Collect data
As soon as you have collected the data of 1 of your patients you will become a JIR member.
The data collection is voluntary and there is no minimum dataset which must be completed. The network does not finance data collection except for specific projects.
3
Participate to a project
For every research project for which at least one of your patients fits to the inclusion criteria, you will be contacted by the JIR team and informed about the conditions to participate to the project (data to collect / available support for data collection). With these informations you can decide to participate to the project or not.
The JIR members can get special discount for the JIR academy events and online material.

How to develop my own JIR research project
You must be a JIR member to be able to develop your own research project with the data from the JIRcohort.
1
Get the approval
Get the approval from the JIR scientific committee.
To do so please fill in the attached form and send it to the JIR team.
If your project only requests your center's data, you can directly export it through the JIR platform without the approval from the JIR scientific committee.
2
Prepare data & Contact JIR members
Once your project is approved, the JIR team can assist you in the preparation of the data and help you to contact the JIR members with interesting patients for your project.
3
Send your outputs
All the outputs from your project (abstract / thesis / article / congress presentation) must be sent to the JIR team.
Publications
Ongoing projects
Note : Patients in our database who prefer not to participate in specific projects are encouraged to communicate their choice to their physicians (please mention the project name). We respect and support your decisions regarding project involvement. Thank you for being part of our valuable medical research community."
Cr-FMF: Colchicine-resistance in familial Mediterranean fever
This project focuses on patients with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), a rare genetic disease that causes repeated episodes of fever and inflammation.
The standard treatment for FMF is a medication called colchicine, which helps prevent attacks and complications. However, in some patients, colchicine alone is not enough to control the disease: this situation is known as colchicine resistance.
Today, different doctors and centers may use different criteria to decide when colchicine is no longer effective and when additional treatments (such as biologic drugs) are needed. This can lead to unequal access to therapies and inconsistent care for patients across countries and healthcare systems.
The aim of this project is to compare the information reported by physicians through the JIR CliPS questionnaires with the real-world clinical data recorded in three large international registries. By doing so, we seek to understand how colchicine resistance in FMF is identified and managed in everyday practice, and to assess the consistency and completeness of these different data sources regarding disease activity, treatment history, and laboratory markers.
Basically, we aim to compare what physicians report about colchicine resistance in clinical practice through standardized questionnaires (the JIR CliPS questionnaires) with what is actually done, as documented in international patient registries.
By comparing how doctors across different countries recognize and treat colchicine-resistant FMF, the project will help highlight differences between clinical guidelines and real-world practice, identify patterns in how resistance is suspected and treated, support the creation of a shared international definition of colchicine resistance, promote more equal and personalized care for FMF patients, regardless of where they live.
Ultimately, our goal is to improve understanding, reduce disparities, and help patients receive the right treatment at the right time.
Multicentric project
Versailles Hospital
Dr Veronique Hentgen, Dr Saverio La Bella
jNPSLE juvenile neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus : épidemiological study
Epidemiological description of the JIR-cohort juvenile neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosous. Preliminary study, that will pave the path for a secondary descriptive study about affected neuropsychiatric systemic lupus in pediatric-onset lupus.
Multicentric project
APHP - Trousseau
Isabelle Melki, Aurélia Carbasse, Stéphanie Antoun
FOREUM project
We are part of an international research study focused on finding better treatment strategies for children and adolescents living with lupus. Because lupus in young people is rare, it is important to combine data from different countries to better understand the disease.
Our registry shares data securely with teams at the University of Liverpool (UK) and Duke University (USA), who are working with other large registries in the UK and the US. The goal is to define targets for treatment, such as “remission” or “low disease activity,” and understand how achieving these targets affects the long-term health of patients.
Eve Smith and Rebecca Sadun for University of Liverpool
Alexandre Belot (responsible for JIRcohort data)




