[Rheumatoid arthritis: the usefulness of power Doppler sonography].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the intra-articular vascularization of the synovial pannus of patients with rheumatoid arthritis with power Doppler sonography and to correlate these findings with clinical findings and laboratory measures of disease activity. Seventy-four different joints of 23 patients with diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis were studied. Clinical and functional assessment (number of swollen joints, visual analogue scale) and laboratory evaluation were made for all patients. Disease activity was evaluated using the disease activity score (DAS28) for each patient. The power Doppler sonography vascularity of the synovial membrane was classified semiquantatively. The strong correlation was found between qualitative power Doppler sonography results with joints with clinically active arthritis (Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0.67, p=0.0001). The power Doppler sonography was weakly correlated with disease activity score. No correlation was found with age, disease duration, and other laboratory and clinical variables. Power Doppler sonography may be a valuable tool to detect synovial vascularity and to assist clinicians in distinguishing between inflammatory and non-inflammatory pannus.