Table 1.

The role of imaging in monitoring treatment in the different stages of gout.

		Management or treatment of gout
Stages	Imaging modality	Experimental group	Control group	Outcome	Scanned sites	Follow-up visit	Ref.
Hyperuricemia	US	16 patients (hyperuricemia and persistent foot pain) with 80 mg/day febuxostat	15 individuals with AH	Sustaining foot pain and DCs positive patients had obviously lower pain scores under ULTs	MTP1	M1, M3	(21)
Gout flares	DECT	62 gouty patients under allopurinol/febuxostat	–	Every 1-cm3 increase in MSU volume in feet, the risk of gout attacks increased 2.03-fold	Feet	M3, M6, M12	(30)
	US	79 individuals with a 6-month ULT and gout prophylaxis	79 individuals with continuous 6-month ULTs and stopped prophylaxis	The low rate of gout relapse was found in patients with a greater than 50% reduction in tophi volume, s	MTP1, knees	M6, M12	(31)
Chronic gout	DECT	152 patients with allopurinol ≥ 300 mg/day for a mean of 5.1 years	–	The volume of MSU crystal was greater in those with sUA ≥ 6.0 mg/dl and tophi	Hands/wrists feet/knees	Day 1 Day 28	(36)
	DECT	77 gouty patients with lifestyle improvement or allopurinol or febuxostat	–	Urate precipitation dissipated the most in the febuxostat group, followed by allopurinol group, and finally in the lifestyle improvement group	MTP1, toes Feet/ankle Soft tissues	M18	(37)
	DECT	42 patients with dose escalation of allopurinol during 2 years	45 patients with no change dose of allopurinol at Year 1 and dose escalation in Year 2	Higher levels of allopurinol benefits bone reconstruction in gout joints	Feet	Year 1, Year 2	(38)
	DECT	10 refractory gouty patients under 8 mg/day pegloticase intravenously every 2 weeks	–	sUA levels and tophi were both sensitive to pegloticase, 71.4% of tophi disappeared	Hands/wrists feet/ankles	Mean of 13.3 weeks	(41)
	DECT	A patient with refractory gout with a 6-month pegloticase	–	A significant reduction in tophi	Hands and feet	M6	(42)
	US	79 gouty patients under allopurinol/febuxostat	–	DCs and tophi features were significantly reduced	Knees and MTP1s	M3, M6	(49)
	US	209 gouty patients under allopurinol/febuxostat	–	The T2T under ULTs can reduce all MSU depositions, especially for DC	Hands/wrists feet/knees	M3, M6, M12	(54)
	US	50 gouty patients with allopurinol/benzbromarone/febuxostat	–	A significant deduction of DC, tophus and aggregate sum scores	28 joints and 26 tendons	M3, M6	(55)
	MRI	157 early stage gouty patients with febuxostat	157 early-stage gouty patients with placebo	Patients on febuxostat had better RAMRI synovitis scores and significantly fewer acute gout attacks	Hands and feet	M6, M12 M18, M24	(58)
	MRI	26 patients with tophaceous gout and limited knee motion	–	A significant improvement in knee mobility and a reduction in intra-articular tophi	Knees and all subcutaneous nodules	M18	(59)