Page 106 - Imaging of Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis in Hand Joints

Chapter 6
not want additional US examinations, and for 12 patients it was logistically not possible to combine the ultrasound examinations with the MRI examinations, mostly because of unavailability of one or both of the US examiners. The baseline characteristics of the patients and their diagnosis after one year are shown in Table 1. The median number of days between all MRI and ultrasound examinations was 1 (IQR 1-2). Patients did not yet have a diagnosis at the time of the imaging visits. However, after one year 15 out of the 40 patients were diagnosed with RA, 14 with another form of arthritis (Table 1), and 9 patients with arthralgia that did not show clinical signs of arthritis. Two patients were lost to follow up. Their diagnoses at their last visit were osteoarthritis and arthralgia without arthritis.
Table 1. Patient characteristics. Characteristic
Age (years)
Female gender
Disease duration (months)
Swollen joints (0-44)
Tender joints (0-44)
ESR (mm/h)
CRP (mg/l)
IgM RF positive (>12 IE/ml)
Anti-CCP positive (>10 U/ml)
Patients with swollen hand joints
Patients with erosions on hand x-ray (SvdH) Diagnosis after one year:
rheumatoid arthritis unspecified arthritis arthralgia without arthritis osteoarthritis
psoriatic arthritis
fibromyalgia
undifferentiated spondylarthropathy unknown
n=40 n=26
median (IQR) or count (%)
47 (35-59) 26 65%
4 (2-6)
2 (0-5)
5 (3-12) 15 (5-15) 3 (1-3) 15 37.5% 11 27.5% 24 60% 0 0%
15 37.5% 8 20% 7 17.5% 4 10% 2 5%
2 5% 1 2.5% 2 5%
median (IQR) or count (%)
52 (38-62) 16 62%
4 (2-7)
2 (0-3)
6 (4-12) 16 (5-28) 3 (2-8) 11 42% 9 35% 16 62% 0 0%
9 35% 6 23% 5 19% 1 4% 1 4% 2 8% 0 0% 0 0%
Median (IQR) for continuous variables, number % for counts. ESR, erythrocyte sedimentation rate; CRP, C-reactive protein; RF, rheumatoid factor; Anti-CCP, antibody to cyclic citrullinated protein.
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