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Rheumatoid arthritis: Nuclear medicine state-of-the-art imaging
Journal article   Open access

Rheumatoid arthritis: Nuclear medicine state-of-the-art imaging

Paulo Henrique Rosado-de-Castro, Sergio Augusto Lopes de Souza, Dangelo Alexandre, Lea Mirian Barbosa da Fonseca and Bianca Gutfilen
World journal of orthopedics, Vol.5(3), pp.312-318
07/18/2014
DOI: 10.5312/wjo.v5.i3.312
PMCID: PMC4095024
PMID: 25035834
url
https://doi.org/10.5312/wjo.v5.i3.312View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease, which is associated with systemic and chronic inflammation of the joints, resulting in synovitis and pannus formation. For several decades, the assessment of RA has been limited to conventional radiography, assisting in the diagnosis and monitoring of disease. Nevertheless, conventional radiography has poor sensitivity in the detection of the inflammatory process that happens in the initial stages of RA. In the past years, new drugs that significantly decrease the progression of RA have allowed a more efficient treatment. Nuclear Medicine provides functional assessment of physiological processes and therefore has significant potential for timely diagnosis and adequate follow-up of RA. Several single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) radiopharmaceuticals have been developed and applied in this field. The use of hybrid imaging, which permits computed tomography (CT) and nuclear medicine data to be acquired and fused, has increased even more the diagnostic accuracy of Nuclear Medicine by providing anatomical localization in SPECT/CT and PET/CT studies. More recently, fusion of PET with magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) was introduced in some centers and demonstrated great potential. In this article, we will review studies that have been published using Nuclear Medicine for RA and examine key topics in the area. (C) 2014 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Life Sciences & Biomedicine Orthopedics Science & Technology

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