The multimillion dollar question for inflammatory arthritis prescriptions is: which drug should I use next?

AI continues to move from research labs into rheumatology clinics, promising to reshape how inflammatory diseases are diagnosed and monitored. Ankylosing spondylitis, in particular, poses a diagnostic challenge—its early imaging findings are subtle, and radiographic changes may take years to appear and require specific musculoskeletal radiology expertise. A new deep learning model offers a glimpse into how AI could bridge this diagnostic gap.

Drs. Jack Cush & Arthur Kavanaugh, two of rheumatology’s most trusted voices, provide a breakdown of the latest breakthroughs and hottest topics in rheumatology from the 2025 ACR Convergence meeting in Chicago.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a burden on the bones—both literally and diagnostically. The disease’s dual nature, marked by chronic inflammation and abnormal new bone formation, complicates the assessment of bone health. While inflammation erodes trabecular bone, syndesmophytes and ligamentous calcifications can falsely elevate spine bone mineral density (BMD) readings on standard dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).