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Published on: October 20, 2013
Subtle radiographic progression at 6 months can be detected using automated quantitative software in rheumatoid
Taichi Okino1, Yafei Ou2, Masayuki Ikebe2
1Department of Radiological Technology, Sapporo City General Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan.
Objectives:
We investigated whether our in-house software equipped with partial image phase-only correlation (PIPOC) can detect subtle radiographic joint space narrowing (JSN) progression at 6 months and predict JSN progression in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients receiving Tocilizumab.
Methods:
The study included 39 RA patients who were treated with Tocilizumab. Radiological progression of the finger joints was evaluated according to the Genant-modified Sharp score (GSS) at 0, 6, and 12 months.
Results:
The success rate of the software for joint space width (JSW) measurement was 96.8% (449/464). The 0-12-month JSW change by the software was significantly greater in joints with the 0-6-month PIPOC (+) group than the 0-6-month PIPOC (-) group (P < 0.001). The 0-12-month JSW change by the software was 0-12 month GSS (+) than with 0-12 month GSS (-) (P = 0.02). Here, '(+)' indicates the JSN progression during the follow-up period. Linear regression tests showed significant correlations between the 0-6 month and the 0-12 month PIPOC in the left second and third metacarpophalangeal joints (R2 = 0.554 and 0.420, respectively).
Conclusions:
Our in-house software equipped with PIPOC could predict subsequent JSN progression with only short-term observations.
