Imaging techniques, such as ultrasound, are well re
cognized as important tools to
aid early diagnosis and assess response to treatmen
t in RA. Positron Emission
Tomography (PET) offers a means of imaging the infl
ammatory processes of RA at a
cellular level, thus may be a highly sensitive meth
od of assessing synovitis. In this
review, we discuss the advantages of PET as an imag
ing modality for RA and
summarise the existing clinical studies of PET in R
A. We also highlight potentially
important pre3clinical studies of PET in arthritis,
discuss current limitations of PET,
and ongoing developments in PET technology, likely
to be of benefit for arthritis
imaging.