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Background  Clinical swollen joint examination of the obese rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patient can be difficult. Musculoskeletal Ultrasound (MSUS) has higher sensitivity than physical examination for swollen joints (SJ). The purpose of this study was to determine the joint-specific association between power Doppler (PDUS) and clinical SJ in RA across body mass index (BMI) categories.    Methods  Cross-sectional clinical and laboratory data were collected on 43 RA patients. PDUS was performed on 9 joints (wrist, metacarpalphalangeal 2–5, proximal interphalgeal 2/3 and metatarsalphalangeal 2/5). DAS28 and clinical disease activity index (CDAI) were calculated. Patients were categorized by BMI: <25, 25–30, and >30. Demographic and clinical characteristics were compared across BMI groups with Kruskal-Wallis test and chi-square tests. Joint-level associations between PDUS and clinically SJ were evaluated with mixed effects logistic regression models.    Results  While demographics and clinically-determined disease activity were similar among BMI groups, PDUS scores significantly differed ( p  = 0.02). Using PDUS activity as the reference standard for synovitis and clinically SJ as the test, the positive predictive value of SJ was significantly lower in higher BMI groups (0.71 in BMI < 25, 0.58 in BMI 25–30 and 0.44 in BMI < 30) ( p  = 0.02). The logistic model demonstrated that increased BMI category resulted in decreased likelihood of PDUS positivity (OR 0.52,  p  = 0.03).    Conclusions  This study suggests that in an obese RA patient, a clinically assessed SJ is less likely to represent true synovitis (as measured by PDUS). Disease activity in obese RA patients may be overestimated by CDAI/DAS28 calculations and clinicians when considering change in therapy.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12891-017-1406-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Joint-specific assessment of swelling and power Doppler in obese rheumatoid arthritis patients