The high prevalence of sacroiliac bone marrow edema among the general population makes its presence in isolation insufficient to diagnose axial spondyloarthritis, according to data published in The Lancet Rheumatology.
“Bone marrow edema in the sacroiliac joints plays an important role in both the diagnostic evaluation and classification criteria for axial spondyloarthritis,” Keno Bressem, MD, of the Technical University of Munich, told Healio. “However, recent studies have shown that bone marrow edema is not necessarily inflammatory and may also occur in response to mechanical stress or in