Diagnosis

First, the attending physician conducts an initial consultation with the person concerned. The suspected diagnosis usually exists after the report of the patient’s symptoms. It is also of interest whether relatives of the person concerned also suffer from arthrosis or rheumatic diseases.

If this is the case, there may be a possible indication of a family predisposition to the disease. If you have to work with your hands a lot in your profession or have recently had a serious accident involving your hands, you should inform the treating physician. Accident-related damage can also contribute to osteoarthritis.

Following the initial consultation, the doctor will carry out a physical examination. He looks at the joints of the hands individually. It is usually possible to detect nodules and swellings without having touched the finger joints.

Then the doctor looks at each individual joint and checks its range of motion, ligament stability, pressure pain, swelling, skin changes, redness, overheating. To confirm the suspicion, the attending physician orders an X-ray examination.The following changes, which are typical for finger arthrosis, can occur in X-rays: In addition to this imaging procedure, physicians have other diagnostic measures at their disposal. The ultrasound examination (sonography) is non-invasive (does not penetrate the body), can be performed quickly and easily and can be repeated easily if necessary.

Other imaging measures include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer tomography (CT), scintigraphy, joint puncture with simultaneous examination of the synovial fluid (synovia). Furthermore, the blood of the affected person can be examined. Unlike rheumatic diseases, there are no typical laboratory parameters.

However, it is possible to differentiate between active and expired arthrosis (joint degeneration). In the active form, inflammation values in the blood may be elevated. These include the blood sedimentation rate, the white blood cells (leukocytes) and their subgroups such as lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes, and the C-reactive protein (CRP).

Narrowing of the joint space
Bull horn like runners of the bones (osteophytes)
Bone damage lying underneath the cartilage, which is filled up with other material (connective tissue, fluid, scars) (gravel cysts)
Compression of the bone layer lying under the cartilage (subchondral sclerotherapy).

Since the causes for the development of arthrosis are less often to be found in the area of poorly healed previous illnesses (see above), but primarily in the genetic or hormonal area. Frequently, a patient suffering from arthrosis of the end of the finger joint also exhibits symptoms in the area of the metacarpophalangeal and/or thumb saddle joint. In addition, it cannot be ruled out that other parts of the body, such as the knee and/or hip joint or the spine, are also affected by the disease. This must be checked and excluded in each individual case. If several joints are affected by arthrosis, it is called POLYarthrosis (poly = many).