Ultrasound can assist clinical examinations in precisely identifying inflamed sites in ankles among patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, according to findings published in Arthritis Care & Research and reported in Healio Rheumatology.
“Clinical evaluation (CE) of the ankle is often challenging even for expert pediatric rheumatologists, especially in young patients, owing to the presence of numerous joints and tendons, and the physiological abundant fat,” Stefano Lanni, MD, PhD, of the Policlinico of Milan, in Italy, and colleagues wrote. “These issues explain, at least in part, why signs and symptoms of disease including pain, swelling and impaired joint mobility may be related with difficulty to the involvement of a specific joint of the ankle region with CE.”
“Over the last few years, there has been an expanding application of ultrasound (US) in the management of JIA,” they added. “The high acceptability by patients, the lack of exposure to ionizing radiation, the noninvasiveness and the ability to allow real-time and multiplane imaging of joints and tendons make this imaging technique particularly suitable for the assessment of children with chronic inflammatory arthritis.”
Read more from Healio Rheumatology and find the study in Arthritis Care & Research.
