Automated ultrasound system ARTHUR V.2.0 with AI analysis DIANA V.2.0 matches expert rheumatologist in hand joint assessment of rheumatoid arthritis patients
Authors' conclusion
ARTHUR V.2.0 and DIANA V.2.0 demonstrated repeatability on par with intra-expert agreement reported in the literature and showed encouraging agreement with human assessors
Study context
- Population
- Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients; 22 hand joints assessed for synovial hypertrophy (SH) and Doppler activity (EULAR-OMERACT scale 0–3)564 of 660 joints scanned
- Participants
- 30 patients
- Comparison
- Automated robotic US with AI scoring vs expert rheumatologist assessment
- Outcome
- Agreement and repeatability for SH and Doppler: weighted Cohen's kappa, percent exact agreement (PEA), percent close agreement (PCA) and binary outcomes (healthy ≤1 vs diseased ≥2)
Methodological detailsagreement and repeatability study, rheumatologist blinded to automated system's results, blinded independent assessor
- Agreement and repeatability study
- Rheumatologist blinded to automated system's results
- Blinded independent assessor
Performance
As reported in the abstract
Agreement of ARTHUR+DIANA with rheumatologist
- SH vs rheumatologist: Percent exact agreement (PEA)
- 57.9%
- SH vs rheumatologist: Percent close agreement (PCA)
- 92.9%
- SH vs rheumatologist: binary
- 87.3%
- SH vs rheumatologist: kappa
- 0.38
- Doppler vs rheumatologist: PEA
- 77.3%
- Doppler vs rheumatologist: PCA
- 94.2%
- Doppler vs rheumatologist: binary
- 91.2%
- Doppler vs rheumatologist: kappa
- 0.44
Further findings
Scan success rate of ARTHUR (joints)
- Joints successfully scanned by ARTHUR
- 564 out of 660
- Overall success rate
- 85.5%
Intra-robot repeatability, SH
- PEA
- 63.0%
- PCA
- 93.0%
- Binary agreement
- 90.5%
- Kappa
- 0.54
Intra-robot repeatability, Doppler
- PEA
- 74.8%
- PCA
- 93.7%
- Binary agreement
- 88.1%
- Kappa
- 0.49
Agreement of ARTHUR+DIANA with independent assessor, SH
- PEA
- 49.0%
- PCA
- 91.2%
- Binary agreement
- 80.0%
- Kappa
- 0.39
Agreement of ARTHUR+DIANA with independent assessor, Doppler
- PEA
- 62.6%
- PCA
- 94.4%
- Binary agreement
- 88.1%
- Kappa
- 0.48
Original publication
Automated ultrasound system ARTHUR V.2.0 with AI analysis DIANA V.2.0 matches expert rheumatologist in hand joint assessment of rheumatoid arthritis patients. RMD Open. Published 5 August 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →