Fig 1.
Flow chart of the study.
Fig 2.
61-year-old woman with suspected gout.
Radiograph (A) in dorsopalmar projection shows soft tissue deposits on the radial side of the metacarpophalangeal joint of Dig. II (arrow). Coronal reformations (B) of the corresponding gray-scale CT confirm these hyperdense soft tissue deposits (arrow). Coronal reformations of color-coded DECT images (C) indicate that the soft tissue deposits contain urate crystals.
Fig 3.
75-year-old man with known gout from his previous medical history.
Dorsoplantar radiograph (A) shows no soft tissue deposits. Coronal gray-scale CT image depicts periarticular soft tissue deposits (B) medial to the metatarsophalangeal joint of Dig. I (arrow). Coronal color-coded DECT images (C) show that the soft tissue deposits contain urate crystals (arrow). The primary reason for the false-negative radiograph in this case was the low density of the deposit.
Fig 4.
60-year-old man with suspected gout.
Radiograph (A) shows no radiopaque soft tissue deposits. Coronal gray-scale CT images (B) demonstrate soft tissue deposits palmar to the carpus (arrow). Color-coded, volume rendered 3D DECT images (C) show that the soft tissue deposits contain urate crystals (arrow). The reason for false negative radiograph in this case was superimposition of the deposits by metacarpal bones.