• Ali Guermazi, Daichi Hayashi, Frank W Roemer, Yanyan Zhu, Jingbo Niu, Michel D Crema, M Kassim Javaid, Monica D Marra, John A Lynch, George Y El-Khoury, Yuqing Zhang, Michael C Nevitt, and David T Felson.
• From the Quantitative Imaging Center (QIC), Department of Radiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA; Department of Radiology, Bridgeport Hospital, Yale University School of Medicine, Bridgeport, CT, USA; Department of Radiology, University of Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany; Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Unit, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Hospital do Coração (HCor) and Teleimagem, São Paulo, Brazil; Oxford UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Department of Radiology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
• J Rheumatol. 2014 Mar 1; 41 (3): 501-8.

ObjectiveTo examine the cross-sectional association of whole-knee synovitis assessed by contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CEMRI) with radiographic tibiofemoral osteoarthritis (OA), non-CEMRI-assessed cartilage damage, and meniscal status.MethodsMulticenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST) is a cohort study of people with or at high risk of knee OA. Subjects are a subset of MOST who volunteered for both CEMRI and non-CEMRI. Using CEMRI, synovitis was assessed at 11 sites and graded 0-2 at each site. Presence of "whole-knee synovitis" was defined as the synovitis score of ≥ 1 at any site from each knee. Cartilage and meniscal damage was evaluated using non-CEMRI based on the Whole Organ MRI Score. Logistic regression was used to assess associations of synovitis with radiographic OA (Kellgren-Lawrence grade ≥ 2), widespread cartilage damage, and meniscal damage, adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index (BMI). Additional analyses were performed excluding subjects who had chondrocalcinosis on radiography and those taking antiinflammatory medications.ResultsFour hundred four subjects were included (mean age 58.8 ± 7.0 yrs, BMI 29.6 ± 4.9 kg/m(2), 45.5% women). On CEMRI, the maximum synovitis score across 11 sites in each knee was 0 in 106 knees (26.2%), 1 in 135 (33.4%), and 2 in 163 (40.4%). Synovitis was associated with radiographic OA [adjusted OR (aOR) 3.25, 95% CI 1.98-5.35] and widespread cartilage damage (aOR 1.91, 95% CI 1.24-2.92). Severe meniscal damage showed a borderline significant association with synovitis (aOR 1.74, 95% CI 0.99-3.04). Additional analyses as described did not notably change the results.ConclusionCEMRI-detected synovitis is strongly associated with tibiofemoral radiographic OA and MRI-detected widespread cartilage damage.

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