Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether clinical disease activity findings during 1-year followup of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is associated with changes of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based disease activity scores.
METHODS: Patients with JIA who had active knee involvement were studied using an open-bore MRI. After followup of a median of 1.3 years, patients were re-evaluated and classified as improved or unimproved according to the American College of Rheumatology Pediatric-50 (ACR-Ped50) criteria. Baseline and followup MRI features were scored by 2 readers using the Juvenile Arthritis MRI Scoring (JAMRIS) system, comprising validated scores for synovial hypertrophy, bone marrow changes, cartilage lesions, and bone erosions.
RESULTS: Data of 40 patients were analyzed (62.5% female, mean age 12.2 yrs). After followup, 27 patients (67.5%) were classified as clinically improved, whereas 13 patients (32.5%) showed no clinical improvement. The clinically improved patients showed a significant reduction in synovial hypertrophy scores during followup (p < 0.001), with substantial effects (standardized response mean -0.70). No such changes were observed for any of the other MRI features. Significant differences were detected regarding a change in synovial hypertrophy scores comparing clinically improved and unimproved patients (p = 0.004), without statistically significant differences for changes in scores for bone marrow changes (p = 0.079), cartilage lesions (p = 0.165), and bone erosions (p = 0.078).
CONCLUSION: This is one of the first studies to provide evidence for MRI-based improvement upon followup in JIA patients with knee involvement. There is a strong association with clinical improvement according to the ACR-Ped50 criteria and changes in MRI-based synovial hypertrophy scores, supporting the role of MRI as a responsive outcome measure to evaluate disease activity with antiinflammatory treatment strategies.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 119-27 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | The Journal of rheumatology |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2014 |
Keywords
- Adolescent
- Antirheumatic Agents/therapeutic use
- Arthritis, Juvenile/drug therapy
- Bone Marrow/pathology
- Child
- Disease Progression
- Female
- Follow-Up Studies
- Humans
- Knee Joint/pathology
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Male
- Prospective Studies
- Severity of Illness Index
- Treatment Outcome