الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 137 |  |  |
| | | from | 137 | | |
Abstract
Skin thickening, vascular insufficiency, and fibrotic alterations in the muscles, joints, and internal organs are all symptoms of systemic sclerosis, a multisystem illness.
Thickening of the skin and joint abnormalities in the hand impede movement, resulting in reduced mobility, which can diminish functional capacity and negatively impact quality of life (Almeida et al., 2015).
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory illness that affects the joints of the hands and impairs hand function.
Functional impairment must be assessed in order to determine a patient’s quality of life, disease activity, and treatment outcome (Romero-Guzman et al., 2016).
Hand functions are an essential part of day-to-day tasks.
To test hand function, some instruments were created, such as the DHI Grip Ability Test.
DHI, which was created for RA patients, is also valid and reliable for SSc patients (Duruoz et al., 1996) (Brower and Poole., 2004) (poole et al., 2006).
Besides clinical and lab assessments, us is now an essential tool in the diagnosis and follow up of the disease. Ultrasound is suitable to measure disease activity and structural damage (Aziz et al., 2015).
This study aimed to compare US hand involvement in SSc and RA patients, and to see if there are any links between US findings and disease activity, clinical, radiological parameters, and hand functioning. Compare the electrophysiological finding of hand in SSc and RA patients. In patients with SSc and RA, compare hand functions and the potential impact of functional decline on physical functions and health-related QoL.
Thirty RA patients and thirty SSc patients were included in this study and were allof them subjected to: full history taking,and clinical examination,also laboratory investigations, disease activity measures by DAS28-ESR in RA patients and EScGS for SSc patients, disease disability indices by HAQ, assessment of hand function by DHI, hand span and hand grip. Health related Qol by SF-36, X-ray, US by using (Ultrasound DAS) and electrophysiological examination.
Our study revealed that US is more accurate than clinical examination in founding joint swelling in both RA and SSc as US synovitis ditected in 60% of the RA patients in comparison to 43.3% with clinically founded articular manifestations and 30% of SSc patients in comparison to 20% of clinical synovitis.
We found that in RA patients, synovitis and tenosynovitis showed statistically significant correlation with disease activity, clinical and radiological findings. While in SSC patients US synovits, tenosynovitis and calcinosis showed no statistically significant correlation with disease activity, clinical and radiological findings.
We also found that there is difference between DHI in both groups but with no statistically difference. While there is a statistically difference between RA patients and SSc patients regards hand span ana hand grip. Despite similar functioning and HRQoL, patients with RA had higher visual analoge scale-pain and body mass index.
Our study founded a statistically significant correlation between hand function and disease activity and severity index in both groups.