NEW YORK (Reuters Health), Oct 1 - Power Doppler ultrasonography accurately monitors the response of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to treatment with antitumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents, according to a report in the August issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.
"Power Doppler ultrasonography is more sensitive and possibly more predictive than clinical evaluation in RA therapy monitoring," Dr. Esperanza Naredo from Hospital Severo Ochoa, Madrid, told Reuters Health. "Power Doppler ultrasonography can be a very useful tool for therapy monitoring in RA."
Naredo and colleagues investigated the utility of power Doppler ultrasonography assessment of synovitis and the response to anti-TNF therapy in 278 patients with RA.
Changes in power Doppler ultrasonography parameters paralleled clinical and functional measures of RA, the authors report, and changes in the power Doppler signal correlated significantly with changes in the Disease Activity Score (DAS) 28, ultrasound-measured synovial fluid, and ultrasound-measured synovial hypertrophy.
Moreover, the time-integrated values of the count of joints with power Doppler signal independently predicted progression in the radiographic erosion score and in the total radiographic score.
Changes in rheumatoid factor level and C-reactive protein level had weaker predictive values for radiographic changes, the investigators say.
"I recommend all rheumatologists ... use power Doppler ultrasonography for improving patients' care," Naredo said.
Naredo added that future studies include "therapy monitoring with power Doppler ultrasonography in early RA and other inflammatory arthritis to evaluate prognostic value of power Doppler ultrasonography."
By Will Boggs, MD
Arthritis Rheum 2008;58:2248-2256.
Last Updated: 2008-09-30 16:19:38 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
