Background
PsA, JIA, arthritides, inflammation, arthritis, RA
ARTHRITIDES, INFLAMMATION, DISEASE, ARTHRITIS, JOINT INFLAMMATION
Accurate monitoring of disease activity in patients with arthritides is one of the most important conditions for adequate inflammation control, preservation of joint function, and ultimately outcome improvement [In the last years, there has been a longstanding discussion regarding the appropriateness of various diagnostic tools in the assessment of inflammatory activity in patients with different kinds of arthritides [Interestingly, a few new arthritis diagnostic methods such as fluorescence optical imaging (FOI) and optical spectral transmission (OST) have been lately introduced in the field of rheumatology. Scarce first data on both of these methods have shown “moderate to good” diagnostic performances regarding the detection of joint inflammation in patients with RA (FOI, OST), PsA (FOI), and JIA (FOI) [The primary objective of this study was, therefore, to examine the ability of OST to detect response to anti-inflammatory therapy in patients with active inflammatory arthritides of the wrist and/or finger joints. Secondarily, we sought to examine associations of OST with clinical, laboratory, and US disease activity markers, both before and after treatment initiation.