Use of 18F-fluoride positron emission tomography as a predictor of the hip osteoarthritis progression

Objective. The prediction of hip osteoarthritis (OA) progression is still a difficult issue. We have adopted F-18-fluoride positron emission tomography (PET) for the evaluation of hip osteoarthritis, and investigated the prediction utility of F-18-fluoride PET for both pain worsening and OA progression using a logistic regression model. Materials and methods. A total of 57 hip joints were analyzed for progression risk factors for pain worsening and minimum joint space (MJS) narrowing by logistic regression analysis. Sex, age, BMI, existence of pain, the PET maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), Kellgren and Lawrence grade, MJS, and follow-up period were used as explanatory variables. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed to calculate the cutoff value of the SUVmax. Results. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed significant differences only in the SUVmax values for pain worsening and MJS narrowing. The odds ratio of the SUVmax for pain worsening was 1.89, and for MJS narrowing it was 11.02. The SUVmax cutoff value was 7.2 (sensitivity: 1.00, specificity: 0.84) for pain worsening and 6.4 (sensitivity: 0.92, specificity: 0.83) for MJS narrowing. Conclusions. Our results indicate that the PET SUVmax is a best predictor of pain worsening and MJS narrowing. This imaging modality has a great potential for the prediction of OA progression.