The role of ultrasound imaging in the assessment of rheumatoid arthritis
Autori:
Valentina Delimar, Andrija Jurina, Stjepan Čota, Frane Grubišić, Simeon Grazio, Ines Doko Vajdić, Hana Skala Kavanagh, Iva Žagar, Kristina Kovač Durmiš, Nadica Laktašić Žerjavić, Ivan Ljudevit Caktaš, Porin Perić
Sažetak
Summary
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most common chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases primarily characterized by joint destruction, though it may also present with extra-articular manifestations. Despite current American College of Rheumatology/European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology recommendations on the use of diagnostic ultrasound (US) as an additional tool in the diagnostic workup of RA, US has not yet been incorporated into standard disease activity indices or remission criteria. This review summarizes the latest published consensuses of professional societies for the quantification of US changes in rheumatology, as well as scoring systems for the quantification of synovitis, tenosynovitis, erosions and cartilage damage, with the aim of achieving US standardization. US aids in monitoring RA patients by enabling more objective assessment of disease activity, through detecting subclinical activity and differentiating between inflammatory and noninflammatory
causes of elevated scores obtained using standard clinical indices. We believe that US in RA should find it’s main application in clinically doubtful cases exhibiting elevated disease activity scores using standard clinical indices, in screening of patients with arthralgia or undifferentiated arthritis, and especially in patients with stable remission in whom therapy reduction is being considered.