Application of shear wave elastography and superb microvascular imaging in gouty arthritis

Gao Feng; Ma Fang; Liu Xiaodong

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-3245.2025.02.021

Abstract：Objective To investigate the application value of shear wave elastography(SWE)and superb microvascular imaging(SMI)on gouty arthritis(GA).Methods 85 patients with GA(90 joints)in the hospital were prospectively selected from June 2023 to January 2024 as the study subjects and set as the observation group,and 29 patients(43 joints)with non-gouty arthritis(NGA)were enrolled as the control group.All patients received powder Doppler ultrasound,SWE and SMI.The SWE elastic modulus parameters were compared between groups,and receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was drawn to obtain the area under the curve(AUC),sensitivity,specificity,confidence interval,and cutoff value of SWE elastic modulus parameters in diagnosing GA.According to the Szkudlarek four-level semi-quantitative scoring system,the synovial blood flow of the joint was graded,and the synovial blood flow display rates of SWE,SMI and power Doppler ultrasound for GA were compared.Results The SWE elastic modulus parameters Emax,Emean and Emin in the observation group with(130.90±43.06)kPa,(82.27±19.49)kPa and(50.89±17.83)kPa were higher than(75.14±22.88)kPa,(59.37±15.08)kPa and(32.91±15.09)kPa in the control group(t=6.647,5.759,4.864,P＜0.001).The AUCs of Emax,Emean and Emin in the diagnosis of GA were 0.892,0.824 and 0.791,the sensitivities were 74.44％,64.44％ and 93.33％,the specificities were 93.02％,90.70％ and 55.81％,the 95％ confidence intervals were 0.827～0.939,0.748～0.884 and 0.712～0.856,and the cut-off values were 102 kPa,77 kPa and 29 kPa respectively.The display rate of synovial blood flow in GA by SWE and SMI was higher than that by power Doppler ultrasound(87.78％ vs 83.33％ vs 67.78％,x2=12.238,P=0.002).However,there was no statistical significance in the synovial blood flow display rate between SWE and SMI(x2=0.719,P=0.396).Conclusion Elastic modulus parameters of SWE have a high diagnostic value for GA.Compared with the power Doppler ultrasound model,SMI and SWE have better detection effects on synovial blood flow signals of GA.