Ultrasound Morphea Activity Scoring (<scp>US‐MAS</scp>): Modified <scp>US‐MAS</scp>
Ximena Wortsman, Cristián Vera‐Kellet
Abstract
Morphea, an autoimmune connective tissue disease that affects the skin, can be supported by color Doppler ultrasound in its diagnosis and assessment of activity. To date, there are no reliable laboratory parameters to track activity, and ultrasound presents a higher axial spatial resolution than magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography, which is critical for studying the superficial layers. The quality of the ultrasonographic assessment of activity in morphea depends on the standardization and features of the acquisition of the anatomical data. We propose a detailed ultrasound morphea activity scoring called modified US-MAS (mUS-MAS) that could allow us to systematically register the cutaneous abnormalities in the corporal regions and their subregions. The selection of the scanning sites will depend on the corporal regions of involvement and their adjacent segments. Through systematic and sequential ultrasound data analysis, we propose that this scoring system can better support description and activity tracking accuracy.