Introduction: Clinical remission is a realistic goal in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Doppler signals-synovitis may also considered predictive of clinical flare-ups in RA. Objective: The aim of this study to detect subclinical synovitis and erosions by musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSUS) in RA patients with clinical remission and free from physical synovitis.
Materials and Methods: 41 RA patients were studied who achieved clinical remission for at least 6 months proved by clinical disease activity index (CDAI) and DAS28 without tender neither swollen joints. MSUS of 22 joint done for each patient, the data of gray scale (GS) and color Doppler (CD) graded on a semi-quantitative scale from 0 to 3.
Results: The percentage of RA patients with subclinical synovitis present in at least one joint with CD≥ 1, and CD≥ 2 were 70.7% and 29.2% respectively. The results of CD were significantly lower regarding the use of biologic agents compared to patients on conventional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) alone (p=0.01). There was a strong association between CD synovitis and MSUS bone erosions (p