The specificity of T cells in the inflamed joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been the subject of much study. Bacterial antigens are suspect in the aetiology of rheumatic diseases. The responsiveness of the mononuclear cell fraction of peripheral blood and synovial fluid of patients with RA and of patients with rheumatic diseases other than RA to bacterial antigens such as ce...

The chemotaxis and chemiluminescence responses of polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMN) of synovial fluid and peripheral blood from patients with acute reactive arthritis were studied. Rates of chemotactic and chemokinetic migration of synovial fluid PMN were significantly decreased. In addition, chemiluminescence responses tended to be depressed, suggesting that the cells were deactivated for bot...

In-vitro differences in monosodium urate (MSU) crystal dissolution in paired plasma and synovial fluid samples from patients with various arthritides were studied. Plasma was a significantly better solvent for MSU than synovial fluid (overall difference 6.3 mg/dl (0.37 mmol/l); significant at P less than 0.001). Attempts to correlate the solubility differentials with the principal compositional...

The activity of superoxide dismutase isoenzymes was determined in knee joint synovial fluid from 21 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, nine patients with reactive arthritides, and from 17 patients before arthroscopy or arthrotomy for suspected meniscal or ligament injury (controls). Extracellular superoxide dismutase was the major isoenzyme and accounted for about 80% of the total superoxide d...

The optical model of human joints synovial fluid is proposed. The statistic (statistic moments), correlation (autocorrelation function) and self−similar (Log−Log dependencies of power spectrum) structure of polarization two−dimensional distribu− tions (polarization maps) of synovial fluid has been analyzed. It has been shown that differentiation of polarization maps of joint synovial fluid with...

pain Sir: We read with interest the recent review by Dr Kidd and colleagues on the role of the sympathetic nervous system in chronic joint pain and inflammation.' The authors suggest, on the one hand, a continued influence of the sympathetic nervous system on the inflammatory synovium while, on the other hand, they postulate that nerve fibres are destroyed in the synovial membrane in chronic rh...

OBJECTIVE To examine the mechanism of regulation of interleukin-18 (IL-18) bioactivity by IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP) induction. METHODS Levels of IL-18 and IL-18BPa in synovial fluid samples from patients with osteoarthritis (OA) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), followed by calculation of free IL-18. IL-18 and IL-18BPa synthesis...

Synovial fluid cells from 12 patients with reactive arthritis (ReA) triggered by Chlamydia trachomatis were studied for the presence of Chlamydia DNA using the ligase chain reaction (LCR) LCx (Abbott) and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Amplicor (Roche). In addition, peripheral blood leucocytes from 11 of these patients were analysed by LCR. As controls, seven patients with newly diagnosed ...

The oxidative metabolism of neutrophils isolated from the bloodstream and synovial fluid of 16 patients with rheumatoid arthritis was compared by measuring the ability of neutrophils to generate luminol dependent chemiluminescence and to secrete O2-. Measurements of receptor mediated--that is, N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine stimulated--activation or receptor and second message independ...

A case of septic Candida albicans arthritis of the knee in a patient with systemic candidiasis is presented. Systemic and intra-articular cellular immune responses to C albicans and various bacterial antigens were monitored for 15 weeks. It is shown that the candida induced blastogenesis of synovial fluid lymphocytes was much more stimulated than that of peripheral blood lymphocytes, and that t...