Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jun 17;7(6):591-596.
doi: 10.14744/nci.2020.54037. eCollection 2020.

Evaluation of the thicknesses of cartilage and enthesis in familial Mediterranean fever and enthesitis-related arthritis

Aysenur Pac Kisaarslan  1 , Betul Sozeri  2 , Nihal Sahin  1 , Sumeyra Ozdemir Cicek  1 , Zubeyde Gunduz  1 , Hakan Poyrazoglu  1 , Ruhan Dusunsel  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of the thicknesses of cartilage and enthesis in familial Mediterranean fever and enthesitis-related arthritis

Aysenur Pac Kisaarslan et al. North Clin Istanb. .

Abstract

Objective: Subclinical inflammation is still a controversial issue in inflammatory diseases. There is no reliable, easy, and cheap inflammation marker in daily clinical practices currently. This study aims to predict clinical remission using cartilage and tendon thicknesses.

Methods: Eleven patients with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) who had musculoskeletal involvement before and 11 patients with Enthesitis-Related Arthritis (ERA) were included in this study. They were on remission with clinical and laboratory evaluations for at least three months. Demographic and clinical features of the subjects, including age, sex, body mass index, disease duration, age at onset, medical treatment, and laboratory evaluations, were all noted. Healthy children of the same age were included as the control group. The thicknesses of the bilateral knee, second metacarpophalangeal and ankle joints cartilages, quadriceps, superior and inferior patellar, and the Achilles tendons were measured with a linear probe. A total of 198 joint and 264 tendon thicknesses were measured.

Results: The thicknesses of metacarpophalangeal, knee, and ankle cartilages were higher in the FMF group than in the others. In the FMF group, the quadriceps tendon thickness was higher than in the ERA group, and the superior patellar tendon thickness was higher than in the control group (p<0.05).

Conclusion: According to our preliminary findings, an increased thickness of the cartilage and tendon in FMF patients may be an indicator of subclinical inflammation. Increased thickness of the enthesis in FMF patients may also indicate that enthesitis-related arthritis will also develop in the future.

Keywords: Cartilage thickness; child; enthesis thickness; inflammation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Ultrasonographic appearances of cartilage and enthesis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Magni-Manzoni S, Malattia C, Lanni S, Ravelli A. Advances and challenges in imaging in juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2012;8:329–36. - PubMed
    1. Tok F, Demirkaya E, Ozçakar L. Musculoskeletal ultrasound in pediatric rheumatology. Pediatr Rheumatol Online J. 2011;9:25. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bugni Miotto e Silva V, de Freitas Tavares da Silva C, de Aguiar Vilela Mitraud S, Nely Vilar Furtado R, Esteves Hilário MO, Natour J, et al. Do patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis in remission exhibit active synovitis on joint ultrasound? Rheumatol Int. 2014;34:937–45. - PubMed
    1. Spannow AH, Stenboeg E, Pfeiffer-Jensen M, Herlin T. Ultrasound measurement of joint cartilage thickness in large and small joints in healthy children:a clinical pilot study assessing observer variability. Pediatr Rheumatol Online J. 2007;5:3. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Spannow AH, Pfeiffer-Jensen M, Andersen NT, Herlin T, Stenbøg E. Ultrasonographic measurements of joint cartilage thickness in healthy children:age- and sex-related standard reference values. J Rheumatol. 2010 Dec;37(12):2595–601. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources