Role of Gray Scale and Power Doppler Ultrasonography of Hand Joints in Evaluation of Disease Activity in 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 inflammatory changes which can be detected by ultrasound are pannas formation and joint effusion. Other changes are soft tissue swelling, median nerve compression, bone erosions and joint subluxation. Ultrasound has become an imaging method that is routinely used in daily practice by many rheumatologists for both assessing disease activity and monitoring therapy in RA patients. Previous studies have shown an almost parallel decrease in clinical and US parameters in patients with RA after treatment, highlighting the utility of US for monitoring disease activity. Color Doppler is used to know the severity of the inflammatory changes whether it is mild, moderate and severe signal.