Role of Ultrasound in the Evaluation of Wrist and Hand Joints Affection in Patient with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a complex autoimmune and progressive inflammatory disease that involves the joints and leads to their destruction with functional disability. It mostly involves the finger joints in the hands and wrist joint. The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is 1% in the general population worldwide. It is characterized by proliferative hypervascularized synovitis resulting in bone erosion, cartilage damage, joint destruction and long term disability. Availability of the powerful and expensive drugs has create new demands on radiologists to identify patients with aggressive RA at an early stage to affect the therapeutic management of these patients. In the last decade, musculoskeletal US has played an increasingly important role in the evaluation and monitoring of patients with chronic inflammatory arthritis. US can evaluate synovitis, a pathological hallmark of RA, at both the anatomic and vascular levels. In visualization of bone erosions in the fingers and toe joints, US has been reported to be more sensitive than radiography and comparable in sensitivity with MRI.