Pediatric musculoskeletal ultrasound (PedMSUS) has great potential within the evaluation of youngsters with arthritis, and since 2012 several PedMSUS courses have been endorsed by EULAR – The European Alliance of Rheumatology Associations. But despite this, there was no agreed educational procedure for the conduct, content and format of those courses. That is critical, because the ability of PedMSUS to correlate imaging findings with clinical assessment is very depending on operator expertise.

A task force was due to this fact set as much as conduct a systemic literature review and collect expert opinion on a panel of things that needs to be included in all PedMSUS courses endorsed by EULAR and PReS – the Paediatric Rheumatology European association. The duty force included 24 healthcare professionals and patient research partners from eight different countries.

The outcomes set out 4 levels of procedures and items that needs to be considered for basic, intermediate, advanced, and teach-the-teachers PedMSUS courses. Inside each course, there are recommendations for the suitable content, format, and conduct.

Accurate knowledge and high-level training are mandatory to give you the option to appropriately scan patients and make accurate and reliable image interpretations. This latest work should support education in PedMSUS across Europe, and ensure consistent and standardized education and training on
an increasingly requested imaging technique.

Source:

European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology, EULAR

Journal reference:

Magni-Manzoni S, et al. Procedures for the content, conduct and format of EULAR/PReS paediatric musculoskeletal ultrasound courses. RMD Open 2022;8(2):e002455.
https://rmdopen.bmj.com/content/8/2/e002455