title: Tracking rheumatic disease through imaging.
abstract: This review recounts the historical, current, and future involvement of radiology and imaging in the diagnosis, management, and follow-up of patients with various rheumatic conditions. Radiographs are the mainstay of imaging patients with rheumatic conditions, although magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasonography are routinely used for early diagnosis of disease. Computed tomography remains useful in evaluating the extent of involvement of inflammatory spondyloarthropathies that classically involve the axial skeleton and sacroiliac joints. Molecular imaging has begun to play an innovative role in evaluating patients with arthritis, aiming to identify disease earlier and provide greater specificity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Imaging, Hospital for Special Surgery, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY 10021, USA. sofkac@hss.edu
authors.forename: Carolyn M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Sofka
mesh_terms: D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012216:Rheumatic Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014463:Ultrasonography