RESEARCH ARTICLE
Synovitis in Spondyloarthritides
Heiner Appel1, Jürgen Braun*, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
Issue: Suppl 1
First Page: 123
Last Page: 126
Publisher ID: TORJ-5-123
DOI: 10.2174/1874312901105010123
Article History:
Received Date: 27/3/2011Revision Received Date: 27/9/2011
Acceptance Date: 3/10/2011
Electronic publication date: 30/12/2011
Collection year: 2011

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Recent studies using magnetic resonance imaging have suggested that the subchondral bone marrow and the entheses are the sites which are primarily involved in the peripheral and axial inflammation found in patients with spondyloarthritides. Histopathological analyses indicated that the typical morphological features at these sites reflect an inflammation (osteitis) at the bone cartilage interface and in the subchondral bone marrow. This finding implies that synovitis may be of minor importance, especially in comparison to other inflammatory joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Here, we summarize current available knowledge on synovial involvement in inflammatory processes related to SpA.