查看文章

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that results in progressive destruction of structural components of the joints¹_. It commonly affects the shoulder leading to pain, tenderness and decreased range of motion²_. Increased shoulder pain has been found to correlate strongly with disease severity³, however there is little information available in the literature regarding shoulder pathologies in asymptomatic RA patients.

To determine the prevalence of pathologies in asymptomatic shoulders in rheumatoid arthritis patients and role of ultrasound to detect it.

A cross-sectional study including two groups, first group included 36 RA patients, meeting the ACR/EULAR classification criteria for RA with no shoulder complaints. The second group included 36 healthy control subjects of similar age groups and sex, with no shoulder complaints. They were recruited from …