An OMERACT reliability exercise of inflammatory and structural abnormalities in patients with knee osteoarthritis using ultrasound assessment

Bruyn, George AW
Naredo, Esperanza
Damjanov, Nemanja
Bachta, Artur
Baudoin, Paul
Hammer, Hilde Berner
Lamers-Karnebeek, Femke BG
Moller Parera, Ingrid
Richards, Bethan
Taylor, Mihaela
Ben-Artzi, Ami
D'Agostino, Maria-Antonietta
Garrido, Jesus
Iagnocco, Annamaria
Aydin, Sibel
Backhaus, Marina
Balint, Peter
Chary-Valckenaere, Isabelle
Freeston, Jane
Gandjbakhch, Frederique
Gutierrez, Marwin
Filippucci, Emilio
Hanova, Petra
Ikeda, Kei
Joshua, Frederick
Jousse-Joulin, Sandrine
Kane, David
Kaeley, Gurjit
Karim, Zunaid
Kissin, Eugene
Keen, Helen
Koski, Juhani
Loeuille, Damien
Mandl, Peter
de Miguel, Eugenio
Pineda, Carlos
Thiele, Ralph
Skzudlarek, Marcin
Terslev, Lene
Schmidt, Wolfgang
Wakefield, Richard

¹Department of Rheumatology, MC Groep Hospitals, Lelystad, The Netherlands
²Department of Rheumatology, Hospital GU Gregorio Marañón and Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain
³Institute of Rheumatology, University of Belgrade School of Medicine, Belgrade, Serbia
⁴Department of Internal Diseases and Rheumatology, Military Medical Hospital, Warsaw, Poland
⁵Department of Rheumatology, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway
⁶Bernhoven Ziekenhuis Uden and Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
⁷Instituto Poal de Reumatologia, Barcelona, Spain
⁸Institute of Rheumatology and Orthopaedics, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia; Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
⁹Division of Rheumatology, UCLA, Santa Monica, California, USA
¹⁰Department of Rheumatology, Hôpital Ambroise Paré, APHP, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
¹¹Social Psychology and Methodology Department, Faculty of Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
¹²Department of Rheumatology, University Hospital, Sapienza Universita di Roma, Rome, Italy

Handling editor Hans WJ Bijlsma

George AW Bruyn, Department of Rheumatology, MC Groep Hospitals, Lelystad, 8333 AA, The Netherlands; [email protected]

Received October 13, 2014

Received in revised form March 19, 2015

Accepted March 26, 2015

Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 75(5):p 842-846, May 2016. | DOI: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-206774

Objective

To assess whether ultrasonography (US) is reliable for the evaluation of inflammatory and structural abnormalities in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA).

Methods

Thirteen patients with early knee OA were examined by 11 experienced sonographers during 2 days. Dichotomous and semiquantitative scoring was performed on synovitis characteristics in various aspects of the knee joint. Semiquantitative scoring was done of osteophytes at the medial and lateral femorotibial joint space or cartilage damage of the trochlea and on medial meniscal damage bilaterally. Intra- and interobserver reliability were computed by use of unweighted and weighted κ coefficients.

Results

Intra- and interobserver reliability scores were moderate to good for synovitis (mean κ 0.67 and 0.52, respectively) as well as moderate to good for the global synovitis (0.70 and 0.50, respectively). Mean intra- and interobserver reliability κ for cartilage damage, medial meniscal damage and osteophytes ranged from fair to good (0.55 and 0.34, 0.75 and 0.56, 0.73 and 0.60, respectively).

Conclusions

Using a standardised protocol, dichotomous and semiquantitative US scoring of pathological changes in knee OA can be reliable.