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Ultrasound assessment of new onset bilateral painful shoulder in patients with polymyalgia rheumatica and rheumatoid arthritis
Clinical Rheumatology, 06/12/2012
Clinical Article
Ruta S et al. – Ultrasound (US)–detected periarticular inflammatory involvement more frequently in polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) both unilaterally and bilaterally and intra–articular inflammatory involvement was commonly in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) but only unilaterally.
Methods- Thirty patients with PMR, 30 with RA, and 60 controls were included for a total of 60 shoulders per group.
- Unilateral subacromial–subdeltoid (SAD) bursitis and long head biceps (LHB) tenosynovitis were significantly more frequent in patients with PMR when compared to those with RA (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.01, respectively) and controls (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively).
- Unilateral gleno–humeral (GH) synovitis was more common in RA than in PMR and controls (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively).
- Bilateral SAD bursitis was significantly more frequent in patients with PMR than in those with RA (p < 0.01) as was bilateral LHB tenosynovitis (p < 0.01).
- No significant differences were found in bilateral GH synovitis.
