Abstract Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by synovial inflammation and progressive joint damage. Accurate assessment of disease activity is essential for clinical management. This study aimed to explore the clinical value of shear wave elastography (SWE) combined with a simplified ultrasound joint score in evaluating RA activity. Methods: According to the disease activity score 28 (DAS28) score, the patients were divided into four groups: remission group, low activity group, moderate activity group, and high activity group. All patients were evaluated by the simplified ultrasound joint scoring system, and the shear wave velocity (SWV) of the synovial area was measured in combination with SWE. The correlation between SWV value, simplified ultrasound joint score, and DAS28 score was evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis. At the same time, the receiver operating characteristic curve was used to analyze the sensitivity, specificity, and clinical efficacy of SWE combined with simplified ultrasound joint score in assessing RA activity and compared with a single evaluation method. Results: The area under the curve (0.846) of SWE combined with the simplified ultrasound joint score for assessing RA activity was higher than that of the simplified ultrasound joint score or SWE alone. Conclusion: The evaluation method of SWE combined with simplified ultrasound joint score is a direction worth exploring in the activity assessment of RA.
Chen et al. (Sat,) studied this question.