The Role of High Resolution Ultrasound in the Assessment of Knee Osteoarthritis

Abstract

AbstractBackground: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common musculoskeletaldisease with high prevalence worldwide. Knee OAis primary diagnosed using conventional radiography, however,changes of articular cartilage or menisci cannot be directlyassessed using conventional radiology. Ultrasound (US) canbe used to assess soft tissue degeneration directly.Aim of Study: The aim of this study is to evaluate theefficacy of High Resolution Ultrasound (HRUS) in the assessmentof structural abnormalities found in knee osteoarthritis.Patients and Methods: The study was conducted upon 20patients with knee OA (12F, 8M; mean age 53 years), eachsubject was evaluated for the presence of medial and lateralfemoral cartilage thinning, medial and lateral femoral andtibial osteophytes, medial and lateral meniscal degeneration,joint effusion and Baker's cyst using ultrasound and MRI,considering MRI as a reference standard.Results: The overall sensitivity of the ultrasound in thedetection of knee OA parameters was good (89.3%), theoverall accuracy was excellent (90%), the overall specificitywas excellent (93.1%). The Positive Predictive Value (PPV)and the Negative Predictive Value (NPV) were 98.3 and 65.9respectively. The p-value was highly significant (<0.01) whencomparing assessment of knee osteoarthritis parameters betweenultrasound and MRI.Conclusion: Ultrasound assessment of the knee joint isan accurate imaging method for detection of knee osteoarthritisparameters including medial and lateral femoral articularcartilage thinning, medial and lateral osteophytes, medial andlateral meniscal degeneration, joint effusion and Baker's cyst.Thus, Knee ultrasound can be used as a complementaryimaging technique to radiography, especially when MRI isnot available, to assess tissue-specific structural OA degenerationnot detected by conventional radiographs.