Assessing synovitis based on dynamic gadolinium-enhanced MRI and EULAR-OMERACT scores of the wrist in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study was to correlate dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) perfusion parameters and conventional MRI scored with RAMRIS acquired from the wrists of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS

Fifty-nine RA patients had conventional and DCE-MRI of the wrist using a low-field 0.2T ESAOTE extremity scanner. Synovitis, bone oedema and bone erosions were assessed using RAMRIS. DCE-MRI data were analysed using dedicated software Dynamika resulting in a set of perfusion parameters.

RESULTS

RAMRIS synovitis score and the number of enhancing pixels in DCE-MRI images have shown significant correlation. In this study, the parameters reflecting the dynamics of MRI signal enhancement (maximum enhancement, initial enhancement rate and the time of onset of enhancement) did not correlate with RAMRIS synovitis score, with bone oedema and with bone erosions scores.

CONCLUSIONS

One-way analysis of variance leads to conclusions consistent with the correlation analysis. There were cases of inflammation seen in axial images of a 3D T1-weighed gradient echo sequence not reflected in the perfusion data.