The RA Scanner: Prediction of Rheumatoid Joint Inflammation Based on Laser Imaging

We describe the RA scanner, a novel system for the examination of pa- tients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The RA scanner is based on a novel laser-based imaging technique which is sensitive to the optical characteristics of finger joint tissue. Based on the laser images, finger joints are classified according to whether the inflammatory status has improved or worsened. To perform the classification task, various lin- ear and kernel-based systems were implemented and their performances were compared. Special emphasis was put on measures to reliably per- form parameter tuning and evaluation, since only a very small data set was available.