Identification and Quantification of Precursory Changes of Rheumatoid Vasculitis in the Dorsalis Pedis Artery

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

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Author(s)

  • Robyn Boman
  • Roy T.H. Cheung
  • Stefania Penkala
  • Fredrick Joshua

Related Research Unit(s)

Detail(s)

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1661-1668
Journal / PublicationUltrasound in Medicine & Biology
Volume50
Issue number11
Online published31 Aug 2024
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2024

Link(s)

Abstract

Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic connective tissue autoimmune disease that can infiltrate arterial walls. The delay in diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid vasculitis (RV) in patients with RA may lead to irreversible damage to the arterial walls of small-to-medium vessels, which has serious and devastating consequences, most notably lung and cardiac damage. In this work an ultrasound image-based biomarker was developed to detect precursory changes in RV.
Methods: The ground truth was initiated from a medical diagnosis of RA, with arterial wall thickening of the proximal dorsalis pedis artery (DPA) indicating precursory changes of RV identified with ultrasound scanning. Ultrasound images of the DPA from 49 healthy subjects in the control group and 46 patients in the RA group were obtained. In total, 187 texture features were extracted from the images, followed by principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis.
Results: The proposed biomarker detected a significant difference between the two groups (p = 5.74 × 10-18) with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.85. Ten major textural features contributing most heavily to the biomarker were identified, with these textures being consistent with clinical observations of RV identified in previous studies. Interscan reproducibility was assessed by computing the biomarker twice based on repeated scans of each ankle. High interscan reproducibility was demonstrated by a strong and significant Pearson's coefficient (r = 0.85, p < 0.01) between the two repeated measurements of the proposed biomarker.
Conclusion: The proposed biomarker can discriminate image textural differences seen in images acquired from RA patients, demonstrating precursory changes in RV compared with healthy controls. The major discriminative features identified in this study may facilitate the early identification and treatment of RV.
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.

Research Area(s)

  • Inflammation, Rheumatoid vasculitis, Ultrasound texture

Citation Format(s)

Identification and Quantification of Precursory Changes of Rheumatoid Vasculitis in the Dorsalis Pedis Artery. / Ren, Bo-Wen; Boman, Robyn; Chan, Rosa H.M. et al.
In: Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology, Vol. 50, No. 11, 11.2024, p. 1661-1668.

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

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