Hot joints: myth or reality? A thermographic joint assessment of inflammatory arthritis patients

This study aimed to assess the utility of thermographic imaging in the evaluation of inflammatory arthritis activity as an adjunct to clinical assessment. This was a cross-sectional study of 79 subjects recruited from the University of Alberta Outpatient Rheumatology clinic comparing the hand joints of 49 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosed by American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria to 30 healthy volunteers. Convenience sampling of consecutive RA patients was undertaken. The effect of clinical assessment (HAQ and DAS-28) on joint temperature was evaluated using a linear mixed effect model. A thermography camera, FLIR T300 model, 30  Hz, was used to obtain both thermographic and digital images on subjects. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to assess the correlation of clinical assessments and average joint temperature averaged over all joints. Thermographic analysis did not associate with clinical measures of diseas e activity. In RA patients, there was no statistically significant relationship between joint temperature and clinical assessment of disease activity including Health Assessment Questionnaire (coefficient estimate − 0.54,p = 0.056), swollen joints (coefficient estimate − 0.09,p = 0.238), or serologic markers of inflammation such as CRP (coefficient estimate − 0.006,p = 0.602) and ESR (coefficient estimate − 0.01,p = 0.503). Evaluation of disease activity requires a multifaceted approach that includes...
Source: Clinical Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: research