We studied 20 hands in 10 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 16 hands in 8 healthy volunteers byusing enhanced MR imaging. We could not find any enhanced lesions in the controls. In RA patients, enhanced MR imaging revealed proliferation of synovia when bone erosion doesn't exist in conventional X-P. Enhanced lesions were shown as high signal intensity areas in T2-weighted images and low signal intensity in T1-weighted images.
These results suggested that enhanced MR imaging is useful for early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
