Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) conducted a study on the usage of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detecting osteoarthritis and found that it had significant advantages over X-ray imaging.
MRI was able to detect knee osteoarthritis-related abnormalities even when X-ray images showed no symptoms of the disease. This study was conducted in the elderly and middle-aged patients.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that osteoarthritis affects around 26.9 million people in America and is considered to be the most prominent cause of disability. Osteoarthritis results in pain and stiffness due to degeneration that occurs in bones and soft tissues in joints. The prevalence of osteoarthritis is expected to increase along with the aging population. The disease has a significant impact on health care, financially. A considerable amount of hospitalizations and primary care visits are due to osteoarthritis.
The researchers studied the data from the Framingham Osteoarthritis Study. The study was performed on adults in whom X-ray images did not show any symptoms of knee osteoarthritis. These subjects were over the age of 50. The MRIs of the right knee of 710 ambulatory patients were analyzed. Detailed analysis was performed on criteria including body mass index, gender, age, and whether the subject felt any knee pain or not.
The study revealed that in 90% of the cases where X-ray images did not show clear evidence of knee osteoarthritis, MRI provided clear symptoms of the disease. Further, abnormalities in MRI were found even among subjects who did not complain of knee pain.
This finding suggests that MRIs demonstrated significant advantages in detecting knee osteoarthritis in the early stages, but its effectiveness for later in life patients has to be determined with further research.
The study has been published in BMJ.
Source: http://www.bmc.org/