title: Joint blood flow is more sensitive to inflammatory arthritis than oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, and oxygen saturation.
abstract: Joint hypoxia plays a central role in the progression and perpetuation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Thus, optical techniques that can measure surrogate markers of hypoxia such as blood flow, oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, and oxygen saturation are being developed to monitor RA. The purpose of the current study was to compare the sensitivity of these physiological parameters to arthritis. Experiments were conducted in a rabbit model of RA and the results revealed that joint blood flow was the most sensitive to arthritis and could detect a statistically significant difference (p<0.05, power = 0.8) between inflamed and healthy joints with a sample size of only four subjects. Considering that this aquantitativetechnique, the high sensitivity to arthritis suggests that joint perfusion has the potential to become a potent tool for monitoring disease progression and treatment response in RA.
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada.
authors.forename: Ajay
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rajaram
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada.
authors.forename: Seva
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ioussoufovitch
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada.
authors.forename: Laura B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Morrison
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: St Lawrence
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada; Imaging Program, Robarts Research Institute, 100 Perth Drive, London, Ontario N6A 5K8, Canada.
authors.forename: Ting-Yim
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bureau
authors.affiliation: Imaging Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 4V2, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, N6A 5C1, Canada.
authors.forename: Mamadou
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Diop
keywords: (170.3660) Light propagation in tissues; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.6510) Spectroscopy, tissue diagnostics