Fig 1.
Pre injection scan images (pre) and immediate post injection scan images (post) of representative animals are shown. No signs of arthritis are found in Ctrl and RA+Th animals at any time point. First signs of synovitis are detectable in the RA animal on day 32 (arrow). On day 42 synovitis is clearly visible (arrows). Ctrl (Control), RA (animals with arthritis induction), RA+Th (animals with arthritis induction and therapy).
Table 1.
Average rheumatoid arthritis MRI reference image score (RAMRIS).
Table 2.
Average SNR value difference between pre and post injection scan images per group and imaging time point.
Fig 2.
Comparison of the difference of SNR of pre to post scans.
Differences in signal enhancement after contrast agent administration were analyzed on day -1, 32 and 42 and compared for Ctrl (= Control), RA (= Animals with RA induction) and RA+Th (= Animals with RA induction and therapy) group using difference in signal to noise ratio (SNR) before (pre) and after (post) injection. Values are given as boxplots (median; whiskers: min to max). Statistically significant differences between groups were depicted as: ***: p≤0.001.
Fig 3.
Comparison of different scorings.
Relative value of clinical scoring, RAMRIS and SNR analysis on day 32 of the RA group were compared with each other (d32—d-1) / (d42—d-1). Values are given as mean ± SD. *: p<0.05, ***: p<0.001.