Full Papers
Performance of a novel high-resolution infrared thermography marker in detecting and assessing joint inflammation: a comparison with joint ultrasound
K. Triantafyllias1, M. Clasen2, M. De Blasi3, M. Berres4, E. Nikolodimos5, A. Schwarting6
- Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach; and Department of Internal Medicine I, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany. ktriantafyllias@gmail.com
- Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
- Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
- Statistician Department of Mathematics and Technology, University of Applied Science Koblenz, Germany.
- Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
- Department of Rheumatology, Acute Rheumatology Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach; Department of Internal Medicine I, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz; and Karl-Aschoff Clinic, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
CER17389
2024 Vol.42, N°9
PI 1802, PF 1811
Full Papers
PMID: 38757297 [PubMed]
Received: 18/12/2023
Accepted : 15/03/2024
In Press: 01/05/2024
Published: 23/09/2024
Abstract
OBJECTIVES:
To examine the value of a novel high-resolution thermographic marker in the detection of joint inflammation compared to joint ultrasound (US) and to suggest thermographic cut-off values of joint inflammatory activity.
METHODS:
Infrared thermographies were performed in patients with inflammatory arthritides and healthy controls. Patients were moreover examined clinically and by joint-US [Power-Doppler-(PDUS), Greyscale-US (GSUS)]. Regions of interest (ROIs) were defined for every joint and absolute temperature values within the ROIs were documented. The hottest areas (“hotspots”) were identified by a clustering algorithm and the Hotspot/ROI-Ratio (HRR)-values were calculated. Subsequently, the HRR of patient-joints with different grades of hypervascularity (PDUS I°-III°) were compared among each other and with PDUS 0° control-joints. Diagnostic HRR-performance was tested by receiver-operating-characteristics.
RESULTS:
360 joints of 75 arthritis-patients and 1,808 joints of 70 controls were thermographically examined. HRR-values were statistically different between PDUS I-III vs. PDUS 0 and vs. healthy subjects for all four joint groups as well as in the majority of cases between patient-joints with different grades of hypervascularity (PDUS I°-III°; p<0.05). Taking joint-US as a reference, the best performance of HRR was found at the level of the wrist-joints by an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.91 (95%CI 0.84–0.98) with a sensitivity of 0.83 and specificity of 0.88.
CONCLUSIONS:
HRR showed an excellent performance in the differentiation of joints with US inflammatory activity from non-inflamed joints. Moreover, HRR was able to differentiate between joints with different grades of hypervascularity, making HRR a promising tool to assist disease activity monitoring.
