Ultrasound in connective tissue diseases

Rheumatologists have been using ultrasound (US) for the evaluation of patients affected by rheumatic disease for a long time. Actually this approach is becoming more and more diffuse and US is used for multiple purposes: diagnosis, disease activity assessment, prognosis, and therapy monitoring. The real 'new' step for the rheumatologist has been moving from the 'usual' musculoskeletal US to other fields of US, such as the assessment of vascular involvement (both macro and micro), skin, lung and even nails. In this paper we review the published literature related to the use of musculoskeletal, skin and lung US in patients affected by connective tissue diseases.