Ultrasound findings in knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis compared to MRI

Abstract

Background: Osteoarthritis is a common musculoskeletal degenerative disease of the cartilage of joints and rheumatoid arthritis is a destructive autoimmune joint disease. The aim of our study was comparing of ultrasound findings in knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis with MRI as the gold standard.Methods: One hundred subjects with chronic knee pain referred for knee MRI were evaluated by ultrasound and MRI on the same day. Two radiologists assessed knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters on ultrasound and MRI separately and independently. Agreement between the ultrasound and MRI evaluations was determined using weighted kappa statistics. Intra-class correlation coefficients were used to evaluate agreement using the absolute values of knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters.Results: The overall agreements between the two expert’s radiologists were 85% for the knee joint. Taking an agreement in US examination of 2 expert’s radiologist the overall k for was 0.69 when comparing assessment of knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters between ultrasound and MRI. For the knee joint the overall agreement of US findings with MRI was 89%. The overall sensitivity for US of the knee joint was 95.59%, the overall specificity 81.88% in the detection of knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters.Conclusions: Ultrasound assessment of knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters is reliable and, showing good diagnostic performance for the detection of knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis parameters compared with MRI.