The usefulness of ultrasound in identifying the underlying findings linked to pain in podagra patients.

Abstract

To explore whether ultrasound (US) can be employed to identify the underlying characteristics associated with painin patients with podagra by evaluating the relationship between ultrasound findings and clinical pain. Patients with podagra were recruited and grouped into a pain group (G1, 82 patients) and a non pain group (G2, 123 patients).US features were collected and compared. US data were analyzed by binary logistic regression analysis and ROC analysis.Interobserver reliability was assessed, too. A total of 205 patients (196 male and 9 female) were enrolled in thisstudy. In multivariate analysis, the thickness of the synovium (OR=1.928, CI=1.074-3.463), CD (color Doppler) signal of thesynovium (OR=1.458, CI=1.011-2.103), and CD signal of the tophi (OR=1.576, CI=1.142-2.177) were identified as risk factorsfor clinical pain. Areas under the ROC curves (AUC) were 0.713, 0.686 and 0.641 for the three indicators, respectively.The best cutoff points were 1 mm for the thickness of the synovium, grade 1 for the CD signal of the synovium and grade 2for the CD signal of the tophi. Ultrasound can provide valuable information for determining underlying featuresassociated with pain in patients with podagra.