RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A Novel Algorithm Using Within-leg Calibration for Enhanced Accuracy of Detection of Arthritis by Infrared Thermal Imaging in Children
JF The Journal of Rheumatology
JO J Rheumatol
FD The Journal of Rheumatology
SP jrheum.210077
DO 10.3899/jrheum.210077
A1 Yongdong Zhao
A1 Ramesh S.  Iyer
A1 Mahesh Thapa
A1 Debosmita Biswas
A1 Nivrutti Bhide
A1 Joshua Scheck
A1 Kevin Cain
A1 Savannah C.  Partridge
A1 Carol A.  Wallace
YR 2021
UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2021/09/26/jrheum.210077.abstract
AB Objective To standardize and improve the accuracy of detection of arthritis by thermal imaging. Methods Children with clinically active arthritis in the knee or ankle, as well as healthy controls, were enrolled to the development cohort; another group of children with knee symptoms was enrolled to the validation cohort. Ultrasound was performed in the arthritis subgroup for the development cohort. Joint exam by certified rheumatologists was used as a reference for the validation cohort. Infrared thermal data were analyzed using custom software. Temperature after within-limb calibration (TAWiC) was defined as the temperature differences between joint and ipsilateral mid-tibia. TAWiC of knees and ankles was evaluated using ANOVA across subgroups. Optimal thresholds were determined by receiver-operating characteristic analysis using Youden index. Results There were significant differences in mean and 95th TAWiC of knee in anterior, medial, lateral views, and of ankles in anterior view, between inflamed and uninflamed counterparts (P < 0.05). The area under the curve was higher by 30% when using TAWiCknee than that when using absolute temperature. Within the validation cohort, the sensitivity of accurate detection of arthritis in the knees using both mean and 95th TAWiC from individual views or all 3 views combined ranged from 0.60 to 0.70, and the specificity was > 0.90 in all views. Conclusion Children with active arthritis or tenosynovitis in knees or ankles exhibited higher TAWiC than healthy joints. Our validation cohort study showed promise for the clinical utility of infrared thermal imaging for arthritis detection.