Like all specialized areas of medicine, that of joint disease
informative. The techniques, practical and interpretive, has become
surrounded by a practical mystique and are highly reproducible and
simple, allowing them to be applied in any laboratory. jargon specific
to itself. The number of clinicians working Although we see this volume
as being of value to all in the field is large but the number of
pathologists small. interested in joint disease it is specifically aimed
at It follows that the majority of pathologists are at somewhat
laboratory staff wishing to offer a synovial fluid analytical of an
immediate disadvantage when discussing and ana- service. Like most
cytology we believe much of the cell lysing articular problems with
their rheumatological and and non-cell identification and quantitation
can, and orthopaedic colleagues. should, be undertaken by trained
technical staff. The book In the specific area of synovial fluid
examination the is therefore aimed primarily at two groups: pathologists
difficulties for the pathologist are compounded because who do not
specialize in joint disease and technical staff to date there have been
no basic texts that detail the who will be generating the data on which
interpretation methods, findings and interpretation of the macroscopic
will be based. It is therefore both a text book and a bench and
microscopic characteristics of the fluid in the common reference manual.
arthropathies. In this book we hope to go some way We do not believe our
data or methodology represent towards rectifying this omission.