The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.
The defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.
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Due to copyright reasons, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. In order for the faculty to have time to process the order, it must be received by the faculty no later than 2 days prior to the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. Inquiries regarding the thesis after the public defence must be addressed to the candidate.
Digital Trial Lecture – time and place
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Jeffrey N. Katz, Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Amanda E. Nelson, Thurston Arthritis Research Center, USA
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Berit Flatø, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor II Lars Nordsletten, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Senior Researcher Ida K. Haugen, Diakonhjemmet Hospital
Summary
Joint inflammation plays a role in the pathogenesis of hand osteoarthritis (OA). Fluorescence Optical Imaging (FOI) demonstrates indocyanine green-enhanced microcirculation in finger joints, as a sign of inflammation. FOI could be a potential outcome measure in future hand OA trials with drugs targeting inflammation.
The aim of this thesis was to explore the reliability of three FOI scoring methods and to assess the degree of FOI enhancement in joints with increasing radiographic OA. Furthermore, the association between FOI enhancement and hand symptoms was investigated. Finally, we assessed the diagnostic performance of FOI as a measure of synovitis in hand OA patients with ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as reference.
The thesis is based on observational data on FOI, MRI, ultrasound, x-ray, clinical examination and hand symptoms in hand OA patients from the Nor-Hand study.
FOI enhancement in hand OA patients can be assessed with moderate to good reliability with three different scoring methods. FOI was not able to detect synovitis in the thumb base, although frequent inflammation by ultrasound and MRI was detected in this joint group in 221 hand OA patients. More FOI enhancement was detected in finger joints with an increasing degree of radiographic OA. FOI demonstrated poor to fair correlation with ultrasound-defined synovitis and poor correlation with MRI-defined synovitis. The diagnostic performance of FOI measuring synovitis with MRI and ultrasound as reference was poor. Nevertheless, FOI enhancement was associated with pain in the same joint. FOI enhancement in the hand was not or weakly associated with the severity of hand pain, stiffness and function.
Despite being associated with pain, FOI had clear limitations in measuring inflammation in hand OA with MRI- and ultrasound-defined synovitis as reference. The low-degree inflammation in hand OA and limitations in the FOI technology might contribute to these contradictory findings.
Additional information
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