Evaluation of Power Doppler US Technique for the Diagnosis of Spondylarthropathy (EchoSpA)

Spondylarthritis (SPA) are the second most frequent inflammatory rheumatic disorders and, because it starts early in life and has a chronic progressive course, the impact of this disease on health resources and patient's life quality can be important. Because the characteritic signs of SPA, like radiological evidence of sacro-iliitis, appear late in time, the lag time between the onset first signs of SPA for the patient and the confirmed diagnosis can be very long (up to 8 years). Previous studies proved that patients who are affected by SPA are showing abnormal vascularization of peripheral enthesis more frequently than patients affected by other rheumatic diseases. Ultrasonography in B mode combined with power Doppler (PDUS) is a non invasive and highly sensitive toll which can detect enthesitis and abnormal vsacularization even for the patients who are not showing yet the evidence of SPA's symptomatology. Using PDUS as a early diagnosis tool could lead to the improvement of diagnostic procedures and therapeutic management of SpA and reduce the cost of diagnosis for patient and health insurances.