The value of MRI in the early rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a kind of systemic autoimmune disease presenting with multiple, nonspecific inflammation of the joints. It is a chronic progressive disease. RA is one of the common diseases that cause workforce loss and disability. The early diagnosis and treatment of RA has an important influence on prognosis. MRI has many advantages, such as high soft tissue resolution, multi-layer, multi-planar and multi-sequence imaging, no radiation. It can show many pathological changes of the early RA, including synovitis, bone marrow edema, bone destruction and cartilage degeneration. MRI might he of high value in early diagnosis, predicting progression, evaluation of therapeutic effect and prognosis of RA. In this paper, the value of MRI in early RA was reviewed, aiming to improve the application of MRI in its clinical practice. (authors)