Medical Case Studies and Case Reports received 18 citations as per Google Scholar report
Kakavouli G. Giasna and Zivanovic Sandra
The Rheumatoid Arthritis clinical manifestations are commonly and especially at earlier stages indistinguishable from many other causes of synovitis, such as Crystal induced arthropathies. This causes the diagnosis to become obvious only with progression of the disease. Physical examination and blood markers as common methods of diagnosis may not be able to point certainly to Rheumatoid Arthritis. Here, we applied the ultrasound imaging as an additional technique in order to obtain as accurate and prompt diagnosis of inflammatory disease as possible. We report a case of a Caucasian 75-year-old male patient, with the symptomatology of an acute, symmetric polyarthritis, prolonged morning stiffness, rapid body weight loss, general weakness and pyrexia. Despite the fact that the blood tests had supported an acute systemic inflammatory disease - highly suggestive of Rheumatoid Arthritis, the ultrasound signs had indicated the possibility of presence of the mixed Crystal induced arthropathy. There had been many valuable ultrasound signs that indicated and supported the particular Rheumatologic diseases and therefore contributed in diagnostic and therapeutic procedure as well as in the patient’s follow up. The patient had been successfully treated with colchicine and a minimal dose of cortisone. In order to apply the suitable treatment, it is very important, not to rely only on clinical and biochemical signs and markers because they could be found destructed in majority of Rheumatologic diseases. When the wrong diagnosis is once produced, the recommended therapy might be not only useless but also harmful. Therefore, the responsible physician must assess the patient’s joints using some of the visualization modalities. Probably, the most cheap, approachable, quick, painless and efficient supplemental to clinical method in everyday clinical practice is the Ultrasound imaging.
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