TITLE:
Novel Assessment Technique: Ring Gauge Measurement of Finger Joint Circumference Changes in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
AUTHORS:
Kan Imai, Daisaku Tokunaga, Satoru Nakamura, Shogo Toyama, Naoki Okubo, Takahiro Seno, Yutaka Kawahito, Kenji A. Takahashi, Ryo Oda
KEYWORDS:
Disease Activity, Interphalangeal Joint, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ring Gauge, Semi-Quantitative Evaluation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Rheumatology and Autoimmune Diseases,
Vol.14 No.4,
November
15,
2024
ABSTRACT: Objectives: As therapeutic modalities for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) advance, immediate and quantitative determination of RA disease status is becoming increasingly important. The purpose of this study was to validate the usefulness of a ring gauge as a simple semiquantitative method for assessing hand swelling in patients with RA. Methods: We enrolled patients diagnosed with RA either initiated or switched to a biological therapeutic agent. The circumference of the interphalangeal (IP) joint and the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint was measured using a ring gauge. Assessments of the joint echocardiography, incorporating both Gray Scale (GS) and Power Doppler (PD) imaging, were conducted. These evaluations were performed both before the initiation of biological agent treatment and 28 days after the initial dose. Results: Following the treatment intervention, a significant reduction was observed in the circumference of the joint from the thumb to the little finger (p Conclusions: Our study demonstrated the effectiveness of using a ring gauge as a simple assessment tool for RA, revealing that a change in the ring gauge number by 2 or more corresponded to either improvement or deterioration in synovial thickening detected via joint echocardiography.