Regional Project

Rheumatic musculoskeletal diseases have an ever-increasing impact on health expenditure, due to the increase in their diffusion due to the growing average age of the population and the increase in risk factors such as obesity and incorrect nutrition. They also cause a high social cost for days off work and, last but not least, have a heavy negative influence on the quality of life of patients.

Therefore, it appears a priority to increase the technological skills of doctors in treating patients affected by these diseases and providing them with specific diagnostic tools to anticipate the diagnosis as soon as possible. This will result in a more rapid activation of the therapeutic path, a necessary requirement for its greater effectiveness and for the containment of costs related to the treatment and the disabling evolution of the disease.

In this perspective, I-REUMA is aimed at acquiring knowledge for the development of non-invasive imaging technologies for early diagnosis and follow-up of rheumatological musculoskeletal pathologies in particular for the hand-wrist area. In fact, this is the site most commonly and early affected by some rheumatic diseases such as, for example, rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

The expected result of the research activities is the realization of an experimental demonstrator dedicated to the hand-wrist area, aimed at the diagnosis of rheumatic diseases.