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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Jan 18, 2015; 6(1): 106-116
Published online Jan 18, 2015. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v6.i1.106
Hand bone mass in rheumatoid arthritis: A review of the literature
Gamze Kilic, Salih Ozgocmen
Gamze Kilic, Salih Ozgocmen, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Erciyes University, School of Medicine, Gevher Nesibe Hospital, 38039 Kayseri, Turkey
Author contributions: Kilic G and Ozgocmen S contributed to the collection and analysis of the data, and drafted the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Salih Ozgocmen, MD, Professor, Head, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Erciyes University, School of Medicine, Gevher Nesibe Hospital, Talas Yolu üzeri, 38039 Kayseri, Turkey. sozgocmen@hotmail.com
Telephone: +90-352-2076666
Received: December 29, 2013
Peer-review started: December 30, 2013
First decision: March 12, 2014
Revised: July 11, 2014
Accepted: July 29, 2014
Article in press: July 29, 2014
Published online: January 18, 2015
Processing time: 387 Days and 5.4 Hours
Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common chronic inflammatory disease and periarticular osteoporosis or osteopenia of the inflamed hand joints is an early feature of RA. Quantitative measurement of hand bone loss may be an outcome measure for the detection of joint destruction and disease progression in early RA. This systematic review examines the published literature reporting hand bone mass in patients with RA, particularly those using the dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) methods. The majority of the studies reported that hand bone loss is associated with disease activity, functional status and radiological progression in early RA. Quantitative measurement of hand bone mineral density by DXA may be a useful and practical outcome measure in RA and may be predictive for radiographic progression or functional status in patients with early RA.

Keywords: Rheumatoid arthritis; Hand bone density; Dual X-ray absorptiometry; Periarticular; Osteoporosis

Core tip: Periarticular osteoporosis or osteopenia affecting the hands is an early characteristic sign of bone damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) can be considered a reproducible, sensitive and non-invasive method to assess hand bone mineral density (BMD) in early RA. Quantitative measurement of hand bone loss by DXA may be a useful and practical outcome measure in RA and may have predictive value to determine radiographic progression or functional status in patients with early RA. Building up a reference population to obtain objective and accurate T and Z scores for hand BMD is needed.