Screening for rheumatoid arthritis with finger joint power Doppler ultrasonography: Quantification of conventional power Doppler ultrasonographic scoring
Fukae J et al. – Study reports a novel finger joint Power Doppler ultrasonography (PD-US) scoring system that is both useful and applicable for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods- Aim was to compare the 2 PD-US methods to measure synovial vascularity level of joint inflammation and assess RA
- A novel PD-US finger joint scoring method that introduces quantitative measurements into the conventional PD-US assessment method was assessed
- Finger joint PD-US was performed on 69 pts with RA and 70 pts who had multiple joint pain but showed no evidence of inflammatory diseases
- Synovial vascularity of the metacarpophalangeal joints 1–5 and proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joints 1–5 was measured
- Data was analysed with receiver operating characteristic analysis
- Based on the results for the total vascularity of 20 finger joints, a cut-off value of 36% was defined as discriminating between RA and NI
Results- The novel PD-US method strongly correlates with the conventional method in terms of RA assessment
- The cut-off value was found to be a valuable tool in screening for RA
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