Scientists 'strike gold' in shocking discovery from Hawaiian volcanic rocks
A German university, Göttingen University, has literally "struck gold" in recent findings from volcanic rocks.
A new study of these volcanic rocks from Hawaii, that leaked out from deep under the lithosphere, contained various precious metals.
Dr. Nils Messling of the Göttingen University's Department of Geochemistry said in a news release they were surprised when the test results came in.
"When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally struck gold! Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above," Messling said.
Approximately 99% of the Earth's gold is buried deep in the Earth's Metallic Core, far out of humankind's reach.
The gold is currently buried about 1,800 miles deep in the core.
The discovery of this ruthenium, which was formed and locked down with gold, might be a telling sign that these volcanic rocks are coming from deep within the Earth.
"Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material – several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock – originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii," said Professor Matthias Willbold in a news release.
There is a way to test for isotopes of ruthenium, especially when differences are small variations of the same element.
The isotopes of ruthenium in the Earth's core are slightly different from those on the surface, with the difference being too small to really detect.
However, new procedures developed by researchers at the University of Göttingen have made it possible.
"Whether these processes that we observe today have also been operating in the past remains to be proven. Our findings open up an entirely new perspective on the evolution of the inner dynamics of our home planet," Messling said in a statement.
With these precious metals beginning to leak to the Earth's surface, it could suggest that the supplies of gold and others important for renewable energy came from the Earth's core.
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Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hawaii's volcanic rocks offer proof that Earth's core is leaking gold, study finds
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Gold and other precious metals are leaking from Earth's core into the layers above, eventually making their way up to the surface during the formation of volcanic islands like Hawaii, a new study suggests. The theory results from a three-year analysis of Hawaii's basaltic rocks, which originally formed from plumes of magma, or molten rock, rising from the ocean floor. Clues in the form of heavy metals found in the volcanic rocks could confirm a suspicion long held by geologists — that Earth's molten core is not isolated but likely bleeds into the rocky mantle, the layer between the planet's thin crust and the core. 'About 40 years ago, people first came up with the theory that maybe the core is losing some material into the mantle, but the signals we got so far were really ambiguous,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and lead author of the report, published May 21 in the journal Nature. 'Now, in my opinion, we have the first very strong evidence that some of the core is actually ending up in the mantle.' Scientists already knew that most of the gold on the planet — more than 99.95%, according to Messling — lies hidden in the molten core, along with other heavy elements such as platinum. As meteorites bombarded one another in Earth's early history, a reservoir of these precious metals developed when the core formed about 4.5 billion years ago. But this study suggests that at least a tiny amount of that gold has escaped to the surface, raising the fascinating prospect that, if the leaking continues, more and more of this precious metal could travel from the center of Earth to the crust in the future. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material — several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock — originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,' said study coauthor Matthias Willbold, a professor at the University of Göttingen, in a statement. To find evidence of this core-mantle interaction, Messling and his coauthors obtained some samples of Hawaiian volcanic rocks form the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. 'Some were taken by a submarine, from a deep sea volcano, but (otherwise) it's basically just very ordinary-looking basaltic rock, very unassuming, that you would find anywhere on Hawaii,' he said. 'We started with half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of rock, we crushed it into a powder, and then we melted it in the oven with some different chemicals, to end up with a sample in liquid form.' From that sample, the team extracted all the elements in the platinum group, which includes platinum itself as well as the lesser-known rhodium, palladium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium. The scientists then focused on ruthenium, a silver-gray metal about as rare in Earth's crust as gold. 'The mantle has almost no ruthenium in it,' Messling said. 'It's one of the rarest elements on Earth. But Earth is basically made of meteorites that crashed together, and meteorites (contain) ruthenium, which went into the core when the core formed. So the mantle has next to no ruthenium, and the core has all of the ruthenium. The same with gold and platinum.' Earth's core has two layers. A hot, solid metal sphere of iron and nickel is roughly 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers). A liquid metal outer core is about 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) thick and extends to about 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) below the surface, or right up to the mantle. In contrast, the mantle, which lies between the planet's outer crust and the molten core, is 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) of mostly solid rock. To determine whether the extracted ruthenium was originally from the core and not the mantle, the team looked at a specific isotope, or type, of ruthenium that was likely more abundant in Earth's early building materials during the time the core formed billions of years ago. 'The vast majority of gold and other precious metals like platinum were likely delivered by massive meteorite impacts during the final stages of Earth's formation — a process known as late accretion,' said Pedro Waterton, an assistant professor of geochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who was not involved in the study. The presence of the ruthenium isotope in the basalt samples indicates that at least some of the rock was formed from material coming from the molten metallic core. That's because there is consensus, Messling said, that the material that coalesced during the early stages of Earth's formation does not exist in the meteorite record anymore. He added that the isotope signature in rocks from hotspot volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii is entirely different from any other known rock or meteorite. In other words, the ruthenium isotope Messling found was locked away in the core billions of years ago, so detecting the isotope in volcanic rocks today suggests it comes from the core. 'It's quite a novel and difficult method,' Messling said. 'We managed to measure ruthenium in rocks that have next to no ruthenium in them. In half a kilo (1.1 pounds) of rock, it was less than milligrams — a needle in a planet-sized haystack! That's quite exciting — for a geochemist, at least. It was a long but very exciting process.' So what's the connection with gold? It's chemically similar to ruthenium, Messling said, so if the core is leaking ruthenium, it is also leaking gold in similar quantities. This would be a 'minuscule' amount, however. And even if scientists wanted to extract gold directly from the source, the core-mantle boundary, that's much farther down than current technology could drill. In fact, it's about 236 times deeper than the deepest bore ever drilled — the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, which reaches a depth of 7.62 miles (12.3 kilometers). Proof that the core isn't isolated is particularly thrilling because the core and the mantle shouldn't interact at all, Messling said. 'Their density is too different, like oil and water, so technically they shouldn't mix. And we still don't have a good mechanism to explain why they do. We don't really know much about the core at all,' he said. The Hawaiian rock samples suggest that the leaking process takes between 500 million and 1 billion years to complete, Messling said. 'It's something that has occurred a while ago, and we suspect that it probably has been going on forever, and it's probably still occurring now,' he explained. According to Messling, if the leaking of precious metals is an ongoing process, it could be that at least some of the gold humans have mined may have come from the core even if the quantity of core material in a single rock is negligible, and that the world's supply of gold seems to be replenishing. 'It's a very interesting idea that, although this process is tiny and has zero effect if you look at just one island, if you scale it up to 4.5 billion years it could be that it changes the composition of the Earth,' he said. Researchers who were not involved in the study expressed positive views on the findings. 'We know that the Earth was built from different generations of meteoritic material that were added progressively to the growing planet, and that precious metals from the earliest generations of meteorite material became concentrated into our planet's core while metals from meteorites added in the final stages of the Earth's growth became stranded in our planet's mantle,' said Helen Williams, a professor of geochemistry and planetary science at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The study, she added, confirms that the mantle plumes — rising jets of molten rock coming from the core-mantle boundary that create hot spots like Hawaii — do indeed contain material somehow derived from Earth's metallic core, said Williams, adding that the result was 'exciting.' Jesse Reimink, an associate professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, agrees. 'This is a very old debate, and new data over the past 10 or so years has reinvigorated the possibility that the core was chemically 'leaking' into the mantle over time,' he said. 'This study really does seem to nail the conclusion — the core does contribute some material to the mantle.' The latest research also strengthens the case made in previous work that some mantle plumes incorporate material from Earth's core, said the University of Copenhagen's Waterton. Does that also mean some of the gold in Earth's crust is originally from the core? 'Yes, but probably only a very small amount,' he said.
CNN
17 hours ago
- CNN
Hawaii's volcanic rocks offer proof that Earth's core is leaking gold, study finds
Gold and other precious metals are leaking from Earth's core into the layers above, eventually making their way up to the surface during the formation of volcanic islands like Hawaii, a new study suggests. The theory results from a three-year analysis of Hawaii's basaltic rocks, which originally formed from plumes of magma, or molten rock, rising from the ocean floor. Clues in the form of heavy metals found in the volcanic rocks could confirm a suspicion long held by geologists — that Earth's molten core is not isolated but likely bleeds into the rocky mantle, the layer between the planet's thin crust and the core. 'About 40 years ago, people first came up with the theory that maybe the core is losing some material into the mantle, but the signals we got so far were really ambiguous,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and lead author of the report, published May 21 in the journal Nature. 'Now, in my opinion, we have the first very strong evidence that some of the core is actually ending up in the mantle.' Scientists already knew that most of the gold on the planet — more than 99.95%, according to Messling — lies hidden in the molten core, along with other heavy elements such as platinum. As meteorites bombarded one another in Earth's early history, a reservoir of these precious metals developed when the core formed about 4.5 billion years ago. But this study suggests that at least a tiny amount of that gold has escaped to the surface, raising the fascinating prospect that, if the leaking continues, more and more of this precious metal could travel from the center of Earth to the crust in the future. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material — several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock — originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,' said study coauthor Matthias Willbold, a professor at the University of Göttingen, in a statement. To find evidence of this core-mantle interaction, Messling and his coauthors obtained some samples of Hawaiian volcanic rocks form the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. 'Some were taken by a submarine, from a deep sea volcano, but (otherwise) it's basically just very ordinary-looking basaltic rock, very unassuming, that you would find anywhere on Hawaii,' he said. 'We started with half a kilogram (1.1 pounds) of rock, we crushed it into a powder, and then we melted it in the oven with some different chemicals, to end up with a sample in liquid form.' From that sample, the team extracted all the elements in the platinum group, which includes platinum itself as well as the lesser-known rhodium, palladium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium. The scientists then focused on ruthenium, a silver-gray metal about as rare in Earth's crust as gold. 'The mantle has almost no ruthenium in it,' Messling said. 'It's one of the rarest elements on Earth. But Earth is basically made of meteorites that crashed together, and meteorites (contain) ruthenium, which went into the core when the core formed. So the mantle has next to no ruthenium, and the core has all of the ruthenium. The same with gold and platinum.' Earth's core has two layers. A hot, solid metal sphere of iron and nickel is roughly 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers). A liquid metal outer core is about 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) thick and extends to about 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) below the surface, or right up to the mantle. In contrast, the mantle, which lies between the planet's outer crust and the molten core, is 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) of mostly solid rock. To determine whether the extracted ruthenium was originally from the core and not the mantle, the team looked at a specific isotope, or type, of ruthenium that was likely more abundant in Earth's early building materials during the time the core formed billions of years ago. 'The vast majority of gold and other precious metals like platinum were likely delivered by massive meteorite impacts during the final stages of Earth's formation — a process known as late accretion,' said Pedro Waterton, an assistant professor of geochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who was not involved in the study. The presence of the ruthenium isotope in the basalt samples indicates that at least some of the rock was formed from material coming from the molten metallic core. That's because there is consensus, Messling said, that the material that coalesced during the early stages of Earth's formation does not exist in the meteorite record anymore. He added that the isotope signature in rocks from hotspot volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii is entirely different from any other known rock or meteorite. In other words, the ruthenium isotope Messling found was locked away in the core billions of years ago, so detecting the isotope in volcanic rocks today suggests it comes from the core. 'It's quite a novel and difficult method,' Messling said. 'We managed to measure ruthenium in rocks that have next to no ruthenium in them. In half a kilo (1.1 pounds) of rock, it was less than milligrams — a needle in a planet-sized haystack! That's quite exciting — for a geochemist, at least. It was a long but very exciting process.' So what's the connection with gold? It's chemically similar to ruthenium, Messling said, so if the core is leaking ruthenium, it is also leaking gold in similar quantities. This would be a 'minuscule' amount, however. And even if scientists wanted to extract gold directly from the source, the core-mantle boundary, that's much farther down than current technology could drill. In fact, it's about 236 times deeper than the deepest bore ever drilled — the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, which reaches a depth of 7.62 miles (12.3 kilometers). Proof that the core isn't isolated is particularly thrilling because the core and the mantle shouldn't interact at all, Messling said. 'Their density is too different, like oil and water, so technically they shouldn't mix. And we still don't have a good mechanism to explain why they do. We don't really know much about the core at all,' he said. The Hawaiian rock samples suggest that the leaking process takes between 500 million and 1 billion years to complete, Messling said. 'It's something that has occurred a while ago, and we suspect that it probably has been going on forever, and it's probably still occurring now,' he explained. According to Messling, if the leaking of precious metals is an ongoing process, it could be that at least some of the gold humans have mined may have come from the core even if the quantity of core material in a single rock is negligible, and that the world's supply of gold seems to be replenishing. 'It's a very interesting idea that, although this process is tiny and has zero effect if you look at just one island, if you scale it up to 4.5 billion years it could be that it changes the composition of the Earth,' he said. Researchers who were not involved in the study expressed positive views on the findings. 'We know that the Earth was built from different generations of meteoritic material that were added progressively to the growing planet, and that precious metals from the earliest generations of meteorite material became concentrated into our planet's core while metals from meteorites added in the final stages of the Earth's growth became stranded in our planet's mantle,' said Helen Williams, a professor of geochemistry and planetary science at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The study, she added, confirms that the mantle plumes — rising jets of molten rock coming from the core-mantle boundary that create hot spots like Hawaii — do indeed contain material somehow derived from Earth's metallic core, said Williams, adding that the result was 'exciting.' Jesse Reimink, an associate professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, agrees. 'This is a very old debate, and new data over the past 10 or so years has reinvigorated the possibility that the core was chemically 'leaking' into the mantle over time,' he said. 'This study really does seem to nail the conclusion — the core does contribute some material to the mantle.' The latest research also strengthens the case made in previous work that some mantle plumes incorporate material from Earth's core, said the University of Copenhagen's Waterton. Does that also mean some of the gold in Earth's crust is originally from the core? 'Yes, but probably only a very small amount,' he said.
Medscape
a day ago
- Medscape
Misdiagnosing and Overdiagnosing AxSpA: An ‘Imaging Crisis?'
TORONTO — MRI is central to the early detection and diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), but years-long diagnostic delays are still common. However, experts are warning that misinterpretation of MRI findings is contributing to significant increases in false-positive diagnoses in patients presenting with back pain that may be caused by other, noninflammatory conditions. The good news is that studies show that diagnostic accuracy in the interpretation of MRI findings can be significantly improved when rheumatologists provide radiologists with all the clinical information relevant to a diagnosis of axSpA. 'There is a high risk of misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis of axSpA in clinical practice,' said Denis Poddubnyy, MD, PhD, professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Denis Poddubnyy, MD, PhD 'In 2025, evidence of SpA-compatible active inflammatory and structural changes on MRI of the sacroiliac joints is needed for a diagnosis of axSpA,' he said in a presentation at the Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN) 2025 Annual Meeting. 'There's been a paradigm shift.' Evidence for this paradigm shift comes from the ongoing Improve-axSpA project, Poddubnyy said. The telemedicine initiative, which involves rheumatologists and orthopedists at 40 centers across Germany and Austria, is focused on enhancing the diagnosis of axSpA. Interim findings showed that clinicians misinterpreted the MRI findings in 35% of 476 cases of suspected axSpA submitted for central evaluation. These cases could be explained by noninflammatory conditions that mimic the symptoms of axSpA, said the investigators, led by Poddubnyy. These axSpA-like conditions include degenerative or mechanical changes in the sacroiliac joint (SIJ), degenerative disk disease, and osteitis condensans ilii — a mechanical condition that is often associated with bone marrow edema in the SIJs. 'I believe this [35%] figure is very accurate, not only for Europe — or Germany and Austria — but for anywhere that physicians are trying to apply MRI findings to make an early diagnosis,' Poddubnyy told Medscape Medical News . This finding could also account for a significant proportion of the 40%-50% of patients with axSpA who don't respond to treatment, he said. In the study, central evaluation ruled out axSpA in a whopping 75% of the 183 cases with an inconclusive local diagnosis. In the other 25% of these cases, the diagnosis could not be confirmed by central assessment because of insufficient imaging. This disturbing trend provides evidence of an 'imaging crisis' in axSpA, said Torsten Diekhoff, MD, PhD, a radiologist and associate professor, Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in an editorial published on May 16, 2025, in The Lancet Rheumatology . Poddubnyy was a co-author. 'The prevailing dilemma in imaging of axial spondyloarthritis lies in the incongruence between early detection and the confidence of the imaging assessment,' they wrote. 'Although clinical work-around strategies have been developed to address this issue, they frequently fail to resolve the fundamental concern of achieving an early diagnosis before the manifestation of structural lesions.' When asked to comment, Jonathan Chan, MD, clinical associate professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, said there are 'definitely some major changes that we all agree are important.' One of them is acknowledging that MRI is a better tool than x-ray and that there is heavier weighting for MRI than for x-ray. 'We know that structural lesions are important, and we know that sometimes bone marrow edema can be intermittent, whereas the presence of multiple erosions will not reverse. That is something you can hang your hat on.' The consequences of diagnostic delay in patients with axSpA are well known and include less favorable treatment response and worse clinical outcomes. In 2019, an analysis of health insurance data in Germany from 1677 patients with axSpA revealed that diagnostic delay was common, with a mean of 5.7 years. The factors associated with longer time to diagnosis included female gender, negative HLA-B27 status, the presence of psoriasis, and a younger age at symptom onset. In its 2022 update of management recommendations for axSpA, members of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS)-European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) task force addressed the importance of ruling out alternative explanations for symptoms to avoid unnecessary treatment changes. The diagnostic accuracy of MRI imaging interpreted by physicians in clinical practice could be improved with expert support from a telemedicine platform that 'transcends borders,' said Poddubnyy, who is also a clinician investigator at the Schroeder Arthritis Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 'We want to diagnose patients early, but we need to be extremely careful about how we interpret the imaging of the sacroiliac joints and the spine,' he emphasized. What to Do When MRI Availability Is Limited For many clinicians, however, x-rays are the diagnostic imaging go-to, particularly in areas where access to MRI is limited. 'The specificity of x-rays is not great,' Poddubnyy said. 'If you have to perform x-rays first in your clinical setting, that's okay, but be extremely critical in terms of interpreting this imaging. If you have any doubts about whether axial disease is present, order a cross-sectional image.' When MRI is not readily available, CT may be a good alternative, he suggested. In the Improve-axSpA study, for instance, CT had higher specificity and produced fewer false-positive results than MRI. CT also captured more specific lesions, including erosions and ankylosis. Sharing clinical information can vastly improve MRI interpretation, a 2024 study showed. The results demonstrated that when rheumatologists gave radiologists essential clinical information relevant to the diagnosis of axSpA — not just patient age and gender — the precision and specificity of imaging interpretation significantly improved. When clinical information was available along with conventional radiographs, the precision of SIJ radiograph interpretation — meaning the percentage agreement between diagnosis by a rheumatologist and the radiology report confirming or excluding a diagnosis of axSpA — jumped from 70% to 78%. This kind of information-sharing doesn't happen routinely in clinical practice, said the investigators, led by Tim Pohlner, Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Some clinicians think that sharing essential clinical information will cause bias on the part of the radiologist, explained Poddubnyy. The expertise of both rheumatologists and radiologists is needed to diagnose axSpA, he added, and that means all information on clinical and imaging outcomes must be accessible. 'This is something that should be done in daily clinical practice, in every radiology setting,' Poddubnyy emphasized. 'Rheumatologists should be initiating this, bringing the radiologist to this idea.' The 2024 ASAS recommendations on clinical information to include on imaging referrals provide support for differentiating inflammatory from noninflammatory changes in patients with suspected or known axSpA. A downloadable checklist that can be shared with the radiologist includes information such as patient history, back pain characteristics, HLA-B27 status, physical activity level, pregnancy history, and SpA parameters. For Chan, who is also a clinical investigator at Arthritis Research Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the importance of sharing clinical information became evident while he was working on the CLASSIC study to revise classification criteria for axSpA in adults. 'We would meet every five scans and do a calibration with two or three central reader radiologists and then our local reader radiologist, who was using the 2009 [ASAS] classification criteria. After…our local reader realized what he was missing and what he needed to look for, it was very easy for him to' change the way he practiced. When asked to comment, Walter P. Maksymowych, MBChB, professor of medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, agreed that sharing clinical information such as HLA-B27 status is important. However, he emphasized that classification criteria for axSpA should not be used to diagnose the disease in clinical practice. Walter P. Maksymowych, MBCh 'These criteria are aimed at identifying patients with shared clinical characteristics for the purposes of clinical research, especially clinical trials research,' he said. 'I do think they help highlight key lessons,' he added, 'particularly the importance of MRI as a diagnostic tool.' Education to Improve Diagnostic Accuracy Education of both rheumatologists and radiologists is needed to improve diagnostic accuracy in axSpA, Poddubnyy said in a recent commentary in Nature Reviews Rheumatology . 'Rheumatologists need appropriate training to recognize the potential imaging pitfalls when diagnosing axSpA,' wrote Poddubnyy and Xenofon Baraliakos, MD, PhD, head of Rheumatology at the Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet, in Herne, Germany. Baraliakos is also president-elect of EULAR and past president of ASAS. 'Radiologists require specialized knowledge in interpreting MRI (as well as other imaging) findings in the sacroiliac joints and spine and guidance on how to differentiate inflammatory from mechanical or degenerative changes,' they wrote. Looking ahead, Poddubnyy and Baraliakos noted the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools in the imaging arena. Early evidence shows that AI can detect subtle patterns of inflammation and structural damage and could potentially increase the accuracy of interpreting axSpA-specific changes. Molecular imaging of inflammatory molecules using modalities such as PET could also prove valuable for determining whether bone marrow edema is related to axSpA or to mechanical stress or degenerative changes. In the meantime, the ASAS interactive online case library is an important resource for both rheumatologists and radiologists, Poddubnyy and Baraliakos said. It provides clinical cases with imaging that represent the entire spectrum of axSpA and the most common differential diagnoses. Other resources include the 2024 international ASAS-SPARTAN standardized image acquisition protocol for diagnostic evaluation of the SIJs by MRI and the 2024 international ASAS recommendations for reporting SIJ imaging, which detail ways in which alternative diagnoses can be considered. Online tools, training, and continuing medical education programs are also available at CARE Arthritis Ltd., said Maksymowych, who is chief medical officer. 'We have instructions on how MRI imaging should be performed and how it should be interpreted, with an extensive library of MRI scans in a DICOM [Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine] format. We also provide other tools for clinicians, such as how to assess enthesitis, do a physical exam, and so on.' When all is said and done, early diagnosis increases the likelihood of a good treatment response. 'The earlier, the better,' Poddubnyy said. Studies of patients with symptoms of 3-5 years' duration have demonstrated the highest response rates, including remission, he pointed out. 'I'm pretty much convinced that early diagnosis and early treatment, and achieving an early inflammation-free and symptom-free state, will decrease the likelihood of chronic pain and the development of fibromyalgia,' Poddubnyy said. 'And with early and appropriate control of inflammation, we should be able to prevent the progression of structural damage, especially in the spine, and avoid long-term disability caused by ankylosis.'
