[Diagnostic value of sacroiliac-joint scintigraphy in acute iridocyclitis]

The association between acute iridocyclitis (a.i.) and sacroiliitis/ankylosing spondylitis is well known. Since bone scintigraphy is a sensitive method of detecting sacroiliitis before radiologic evidence of this condition appears, we examined the role of scintiscanning in the investigation of sacroiliitis in patients with a.i. The sacroiliac-joint/sacrum ratio was determined in 30 control subjects and in 21 patients with a.i., who showed no radiologic signs of sacroiliitis. No discrimination between patients with a.i. and control subjects was obtained by scintigraphy, neither did we find any difference in the mean sacroiliac-joint/sacrum ratios between HLA-B-27-positive and HLA-B-27-negative individuals with a.i. This study does not support the claim that patients with a.i. often suffer from clinically and radiologically silent sacroiliitis which would be detected only by scintigraphy. According to our results, regular scintigraphic examinations of the sacroiliac joint in all patients with a.i. are not indicated.