Radiography is widely accepted as the gold standard for diagnosing osteoarthritis (OA), but it has limitations when assessing early stage OA and monitoring progression. While there are improvements in the treatment of OA, the challenge is early recognition.
MEDLINE and PubMed as well as professional orthopaedic and imaging websites were reviewed from 2006 to 2016.
Clinical review.
Level 4.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide the most comprehensive assessment of joint injury and OA with the advantages of being noninvasive and multiplanar with excellent soft tissue contrast. However, MRI is expensive, time consuming, and not widely used for monitoring OA clinically. Computed tomography (CT) and CT arthrography (CTA) can also be used to evaluate OA, but these are also invasive and require radiation exposure. Ultrasound is particularly useful for evaluation of synovitis but not for progression of OA.
MRI, CT, and CTA are available for the diagnosis and monitoring of OA. Improvement in techniques and decrease in cost can allow some of these modalities to be effective methods of detecting early OA.