Whole body MRI in spondyloarthritis (SpA): Preliminary results suggest that DWI outperforms STIR for lesion detection.

To compare the diagnostic accuracy of DWI and STIR sequences in Whole body (WB) MRI of SpA patients. Twenty consecutive patients with confirmed active SpA and 20 controls were investigated with identical WB MRI protocols, including DWI and STIR images. Two observers recorded 'lesions' (high signal intensity foci on STIR and high b-value DWI) in 17 anatomical areas, making a 17-point 'area score' and a 40-point 'lesion score'. ROC performance, inter-observer agreement, correlation with clinical parameters and spine and sacro-iliac joints (SIJ) MRI scores were assessed. SpA patients had significantly higher lesion scores on DWI than on STIR (p