Rheumatology Medical News

Become a Member Today!
Register

Most Viewed Abstracts

1. Report Shows Shift in Starting Salaries for Physicians

2. Rapid correction of low vitamin D status in nursing home residents

3. 2008 Exclusive Survey—Earnings: Good news for primary care income

4. Medicare pay-for-reporting effort draws fire from frustrated doctors

5. Allopurinol-induced recurrent dress syndrome: Pathophysiology and treatment

Your Article Summary

See Latest Articles

(Click the title below to leave the MDLinx Network and go to the Journal's Website)

Evaluation of several ultrasonography scoring systems of synovitis and comparison to clinical examination: Results from a prospective multi-center study of rheumatoid arthritis.
Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, 09/22/09

Dougados M et al. – This study suggests that US evaluation of synovitis is an outcome measure at least as relevant as physical examination. Other studies are required in order to achieve optimal US scoring systems for monitoring RA patients both in clinical trials and in clinical practice

Methods

For both the clinical, B-mode and Power Doppler techniques, the following joints were evaluated: 28 joints (DAS28), 20 joints (MCPs+MTPs) and 38 joints (28+MTPs) using either a binary (yes/no) or a 0-3 grade
Prospective, 4 months follow-up of 76 RA patients requiring anti-TNF therapy (complete follow-up data: 66 patients)

Results

Different clinimetric properties of various US scoring systems were at least as good as the clinical scores with as examples intra-observer reliability ranging from 0.61 to 0.97 versus from 0.53 to 0.82, construct validity ranging from 0.76 to 0.89 versus from 0.76 to 0.88, correlation with CRP ranging from 0.28 to 0.34 versus from 0.28 to 0.35, sensitivity to change ranging from 0.60 to 1.21 versus from 0.96 to 1.36 for US versus clinical scoring systems respectively

<< Previous
The effectiveness and retention rates of methotrexate in...

Next >>
Adjustment for body mass index and calcitrophic hormone levels...