Intermachine agreement of twodimensional grey-scale and power Doppler ultrasound in the follow-up of arthritis patients

Objectives: Power Doppler ultrasound (PDUS) is used for the monitoring of treatment in patients with rheumatic diseases. Different ultrasound (US) equipment is used in specialised and outpatient centres, which raises the problem of the comparability of US examinations. The intermachine reliability of synovitis and Doppler findings was tested for two US machines. Methods: 13 joints of patients with active arthritis were examined from one investigator during 4 follow up visits under treatment with the TNF-alpha inhibitor adalimumab. US was performed with a HDI 5000 (ATL/Philips, Bothell, WA/USA) using a 5–12MHz li…