Ultrasonography in the evaluation of bone erosions

Abstract

To demonstrate the diagnostic efficacy of ultrasonography in depicting erosions in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and to compare sonographic and radiographic findings. Sonographic images were obtained with an AU-4 Idea Esaote Biomedica (Genoa, Italy) equipped with a 13 MHz linear transducer. The images reported in this essay are representative examples of the ability of ultrasonography to detect and characterise even minimal bone margin changes in rheumatoid arthritis. Ultrasonography with very high frequency transducers can depict bone erosions in early target areas of bone resorption. However, further studies are needed to validate this technique and to evaluate the relation between sonographic findings and those obtained with other imaging techniques (standard radiology, magnetic resonance).