Triantafyllias Konstantinos, Alhaddad Mohammed, Schwarting Andreas, Balaklytska Veronika, Baraliakos Xenofon
Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Centre Rhineland-Palatinate, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Str. 9-11, 55543, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
Department of Internal Medicine I, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Centre, Mainz, Germany.
Arthritis Res Ther. 2025 Jan 30;27(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s13075-025-03478-y.
Optical spectral transmission (OST) is a modern diagnostic method capable of quantifying inflammation in the finger and wrist joints of arthritis patients by assessing the blood-specific absorption of light transmitted through a tissue. The diagnostic performance of this modality has not been adequately examined and data regarding OST associations with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are limited. Aim of this study was therefore to investigate the performance of OST in assessing joint inflammation as compared to MRI in patients with inflammatory arthritis (IA).
Data from patients who underwent MRI and OST for suspected IA were analyzed. For comparison, a historical healthy control (HC) group with OST was also accounted. MRI findings were quantified using the Rheumatoid Arthritis MRI Score (RAMRIS). Diagnostic accuracy of OST was evaluated using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC), while correlation analyses were conducted to explore relationships between OST and MRI, as well as disease activity markers.
Overall, 71 patients with known rheumatic diseases (n = 1,542 wrist and finger joints) and 114 HC (n = 2,508 joints) subjects were included. 51 patients showed inflammatory signs on MRI (MRI+). These also showed significantly higher OST scores (16.41 ± 5.53) than subjects without MRI inflammation (MRI-) (11.52 ± 5.03) or HC (10.78 ± 4.19) (all; p < 0.001). OST showed significant correlations with RAMRIS-synovitis and tenosynovitis scores in the MRI + group (rho = 0.541, p < 0.001; rho = 0.341, p = 0.01, respectively). Significant correlations were observed between OST and clinical parameters for disease activity. Using MRI as a reference, the best diagnostic value of OST was observed at the wrist level in the MRI + group, by an AUC of 0.833 (95%CI 0.700-0.966).
OST showed an excellent performance compared to MRI and correlated significantly with RAMRIS scores and clinical parameters in IA patients, also differentiating IA from HC.
光谱透射（OST）是一种现代诊断方法，能够通过评估透过组织的光的血液特异性吸收来量化关节炎患者手指和腕关节的炎症。这种诊断方式的性能尚未得到充分研究，关于OST与磁共振成像（MRI）相关性的数据也很有限。因此，本研究的目的是调查与MRI相比，OST在评估炎症性关节炎（IA）患者关节炎症方面的性能。
分析了因疑似IA接受MRI和OST检查的患者的数据。为作比较，还纳入了有OST检查结果的历史健康对照组（HC）。使用类风湿性关节炎MRI评分（RAMRIS）对MRI结果进行量化。使用受试者工作特征（ROC）评估OST的诊断准确性，同时进行相关性分析以探讨OST与MRI以及疾病活动标志物之间的关系。
总共纳入了71例患有已知风湿性疾病的患者（1542个腕关节和手指关节）和114名HC受试者（2508个关节）。51例患者在MRI上显示有炎症迹象（MRI+）。这些患者的OST评分（16.41±5.53）也显著高于无MRI炎症的受试者（MRI-）（11.52±5.03）或HC（10.78±4.19）（所有比较；p<0.001）。在MRI+组中，OST与RAMRIS滑膜炎和腱鞘炎评分显著相关（rho分别为0.541，p<0.001；rho为0.341，p=0.01）。在OST与疾病活动的临床参数之间观察到显著相关性。以MRI为参考，在MRI+组的腕关节水平观察到OST的最佳诊断价值，曲线下面积（AUC）为0.833（95%CI 0.700-0.966）。
与MRI相比，OST表现出色，并且与IA患者的RAMRIS评分和临床参数显著相关，也能将IA与HC区分开来。
