Radiographic changes of scaphoid distances in rheumatoid arthritis and their correlation with disease clinical & laboratory parameters

Abstract EN

Patients: Fifty rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who satisfied the 1987 American College of Rheumatology criteria were classified into two groups according to the presence of the rheumatoid factor (RF): seronegative (G1) and seropositive (G2).

Each group included 25 patients 19 females and 6 males.

A control group (G3) included 20 healthy subjects.

Method: All patients and controls were subjected to full history, clinical examination (tender joint count, swollen joints, morning hand stiffness…) and laboratory investigations (ESR, CBC, CRP, RF,….).

Radiographic changes of the hands were classified according to the Larson score into grades 0-5.

The scaphoid distance as well as the carpometacarpal scaphoid ratio were measured using the Avrahami et al.

(1992) method.

Results: The scaphoid distance was shorter in sero-positive RA than seronegative patients.

There was a significant correlation between these distances and radiographic changes as well as the clinical inflammatory parameters.

The average of the scaphoid distance in mm was 9.56±1.41, 6.0±2.64 and 8.90±0.83 in the 3 groups respectively.

The carpometacarpo-scaphoid ratio was 11.32+2.58, 17.7+6.95 and 9.23 +0.96 in the same order, which was statistically significant.

Conclusion: The importance of the radiographic changes in RA as the measurement of the scaphoid distance and the carpometacarpo-scaphoid ratio are easy to be performed and may be helpful in the early diagnosis of RA when there are no bone erosions or narrowing of the articular space.