A common manifestation of many autoimmune diseases is joint inflammation. The degree of inflammation of the joints is often used as a metric of disease activity. Assessing disease activity has diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic implications. Inflammation of the joints is often used as a proxy for inflammation in other tissue, and assessing this inflammation has implications for the health of numerous organs in in the body. Currently, physicians use palpation of joints to assess for joint inflammation. This method, while accessible and easy to apply, is lacking in precision. Ultrasound has also been used to assess for joint inflammation for over 20 years, but applying ultrasound technology has proved challenging. There is lack of agreement on optimal joint view, which joints should be examined in which disease, and how inflammation should be graded. Various scanning protocols and grading schemes have been proposed, but each has its strengths and weaknesses.

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