The course of cytokine and chemokine gene expression in clinically suspect arthralgia patients during progression to inflammatory arthritis.

Objectives: Autoantibody responses increase years before the onset of inflammatory arthritis (IA) and are stable during transitioning from clinically suspect arthralgia (CSA) to IA. Cytokine and chemokine levels also increase years before IA onset. However, the course in the at-risk stage of CSA during progression to disease or non-progression is unknown.

The Role of Genetics in Clinically Suspect Arthralgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis Development: A Large Cross-Sectional Study.

Objective: To investigate whether established genetic predictors for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) differentiate healthy controls, patients with clinically suspect arthralgia (CSA), and RA patients.

Methods: Using analyses of variance, chi-square tests, and mean risk difference analyses, we investigated the association of an RA polygenic risk score (PRS) and HLA shared epitope (HLA-SE) with all participant groups, both unstratified and stratified for anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) status. We used 3 separate data sets sampled from the same Dutch population (1,015 healthy controls, 479 CSA patients, and 1,146 early classified RA patients).

Towards a simplified fluid-sensitive MRI protocol in small joints of the hand in early arthritis patients: reliability between modified Dixon and regular Gadolinium enhanced TSE fat saturated MRI-sequences.

Objective: MRI of small joints plays an important role in the early detection and early treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Despite its sensitivity to demonstrate inflammation, clinical use is hampered by accessibility, long scan time, intravenous contrast, and consequent high costs. To improve the feasibility of MRI implementation in clinical practice, we introduce a modified Dixon sequence, which does not require contrast and reduces total acquisition time to 6 min.