ArticleRMD open2022
A Thermographic Disease Activity Index for remote assessment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Article in RMD open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Infrared thermography in the detection of arthritis: a systematic review of diagnostic performance compared with joint ultrasound.Rheumatology international · 2026Pooled it
- Sex bias consideration in healthcare machine-learning research: a systematic review in rheumatoid arthritis.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- From pixels to prediction: improving imaging through AI in rheumatology.EULAR rheumatology open · 2026Review
- Cutaneous Thermography in Arthropathies: Quantitative Imaging, Machine Learning, and Clinical Translation.Journal of imaging · 2026Review
- Utility of Infrared Thermography in Assessing Synovitis in Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Observational Study.Cureus · 2026Article
- Review
- Current application, possibilities, and challenges of artificial intelligence in the management of rheumatoid arthritis, axial spondyloarthritis, and psoriatic arthritis.Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease · 2025Review
- [Application and prospects of infrared thermography in rheumatic diseases].Beijing da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban = Journal of Peking University. Health sciences · 2024Review
- A comparison of thermal characteristics of the small joints of the hands between patients with rheumatoid arthritis and healthy controls.Archives of rheumatology · 2024Article
- External Validation of the Machine Learning-Based Thermographic Indices for Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Prospective Longitudinal Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Thermography at the Elbow Among Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Comparison with Ultrasound-Detected Joint Inflammation Findings.Rheumatology and therapy · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesRemote assessment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has increased during recent years. However, telematic consultations preclude the possibility of carrying out a physical examination and obtaining objective inflammation. In this study, we developed and validated two novel composite disease activity indexes (Thermographic Disease Activity Index (ThermoDAI) and ThermoDAI-CRP) based on thermography of hands and machine learning, in order to assess disease activity easily, rapidly and without formal joint counts.
methodsThermoDAI was developed as the sum of Thermographic Joint Inflammation Score (ThermoJIS), a novel joint inflammation score based on the analysis of thermal images of the hands by machine learning, the Patient Global Assessment (PGA) and, for ThermoDAI-CRP, the C reactive protein (CRP). Construct validity was tested in 146 patients with RA by using Spearman's correlation with ultrasound-determined grey-scale synovial hypertrophy (GS) and power Doppler (PD) scores, CDAI, SDAI and DAS28-CRP.
resultsCorrelations of ultrasound scores with ThermoDAI (GS=0.52; PD=0.56) and ThermoDAI-CRP (GS=0.58; PD=0.61) were moderate to strong, while the correlations of ultrasound scores with PGA (GS=0.35; PD=0.39) and PGA+CRP (GS=0.44; PD=0.46) were weak to moderate. ThermoDAI and ThermoDAI-CRP also showed strong correlations with Clinical Disease Activity Index (ρ>0.83), Simplified Disease Activity Index (ρ>0.85) and Disease Activity Score with 28-Joint Counts-CRP (ρ>0.81) and high sensitivity for detecting active synovitis using remission criteria.
conclusionsThermoDAI and ThermoDAI-CRP showed stronger correlations with ultrasound-determined synovitis than PGA and PGA + CRP, thus presenting an opportunity to improve remote consultations with patients with RA.
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