Abstract

Objective: This study evaluated muscle ultrasound in spondyloarthritis (SpA) patients receiving biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (b-DMARDs) early in treatment.

Methods: A prospective study was conducted with 110 b-DMARD-naive SpA patients. The baseline and control muscle strength, physical performance tests, ultrasonographic muscle parameters, and disease activity scores of 67 controlled patients were examined.

Results: During the follow-up period, there were significant improvements in the thickness of the gastrocnemius medialis (GM) muscle (p<0.001), the length of the GM fascicle (p=0.031), the thickness of the rectus femoris (RF) muscle (p<0.001), the cross-sectional area of the RF (RFCSA) muscle (p<0.001), the thickness of the rectus abdominis (RA) muscle (p<0.001), the thickness of the transverse abdominis (TA) muscle (p=0.004), and the thickness of the external oblique (EO) muscle (p=0.042). Besides, ASDAS-CRP scores were related to GM muscle thickness, RFCSA, and TA muscle thickness percent changes in patients whose disease activity regressed from high to moderate (respectively; p=0.030, p=0.040, p=0.002).

Conclusion: Muscle ultrasound examination can show muscle mass improvement in SpA patients during treatment.

Keywords: DMARDs, muscle ultrasonography, outcome measures, spondyloarthritis

Copyright and license

Copyright © 2024 The author(s). This is an open-access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite

1.
Hafızoğlu M, Özsoy Z, Öztürk ZÖ, et al. Muscle ultrasound in Spondyloarthritis patients receiving biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs early in treatment. Clin Sci Nutr. 2024;6(3):144-152. doi:10.62210/ClinSciNutr.2024.94

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