Περίληψη:
Objective: A prospective pilot study was performed using microwave
radiometry (MR), a noninvasive method detecting in-depth tissue
temperature, to evaluate whether temperature-of-small-joint-derived
scores correlate to parameters commonly used to assess disease activity
in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Methods: Ten patients with active, untreated RA underwent clinical and
laboratory assessments and joint ultrasound and MR of hand and foot
small joints at baseline and at 15, 30, and 90 days after treatment
onset. Mixed-model analysis for repeated measures was used to compare
patient characteristics in sequential visits. Twenty age- and
sex-matched healthy individuals served as control subjects.
Results: Using 1248 MR-derived separate recordings from patients’
joints, several thermoscores involving different joint combinations were
created. When compared with clinical and ultrasound data, the best
performing thermoscore involved temperatures of 16 joints (second to
fifth metacarpal and proximal interphalangeal joints, bilaterally). This
thermoscore correlated to the 28-joint Disease Activity Score-C-reactive
protein, tender and swollen joint counts, patient’s visual analog scale
(all P <= 0.02), and the standard 7-joint ultrasound score (P < 0.03)
and could also discriminate patients in high (mean, 9.2 [SD, 5.6]) or
moderate (7.1 [SD, 3.5]) versus low disease activity/remission (4.2
[SD, 1.8]) (P <= 0.01) or healthy subjects (5.0 [SD, 1.7]) (P =
0.002).
Conclusions: Microwave radiometry-derived increased in-depth temperature
indicative of local inflammation of small joints may serve as an
additional biomarker in RA. Optimization of MR-based methods may result
in objective assessments of RA disease activity in clinical practice.
Συγγραφείς:
Pentazos, George
Laskari, Katerina
Prekas, Kleanthis and
Raftakis, John
Sfikakis, Petros P.
Siores, Elias
