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Correlation of clinical and radiological scores for evaluation of activity in patients having thyroid-associated
Manpreet Singh1, Neeti Rana1, Chirag Ahuja2
1Department of Ophthalmology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
Purpose:
To find a correlation between the clinical (vision-inflammation-strabismus-appearance [VISA] score) and radiological (apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC] values) scores for evaluating disease activity in patients with thyroid-associated orbitopathy.
Design:
A prospective comparative study.
Methods:
Our study was performed for consecutively diagnosed thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO) patients. Clinical evaluation included the VISA classification system with the basic thyroid workup. An inflammatory score of <4/8 was considered inactive and ≥4/8 as an active disease. Every included patient underwent a diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) scan of the orbits. The orbital parameters evaluated on imaging included the proptosis, thickness, as well as the ADC values of extraocular muscles.
Results:
We studied 33 consecutive patients (23 females, 69.7%) with a mean age of 41.8 years. The majority (n = 27, 81.8%) were hyperthyroid, four were hypothyroid, and two were euthyroid. In the VISA classification, nine patients had active TAO (≥4/8 inflammation score), while 24 had inactive disease. There was a positive correlation between the inflammation score and ADC values of medial rectus (MR), inferior rectus (IR) and lateral rectus (LR). We had nine patients with inflammation scores ≥4. With receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, we found that the ADC value of IR can predict disease activity with 68% sensitivity and MR-ADC can predict active TAO with 87% sensitivity.
Conclusion:
The ADC parameters of DW-MRI are objective and less operator dependent than the clinical TAO activity scores like VISA classification. A randomized control trial may provide robust data on this correlation.
