Effect of yttrium 90 on experimental allergic arthritis in rabbits.

Seventeen rabbits were immunized with complete Freund's adjuvant and bovine serum albumin by the method of Dumonde and Glynn (1962), as modified by Cooke and Jasin (1972). Fifteen weeks after allergic arthritis developed in the knee joint, 8 animals were given an injection of 20 muCi yttrium 90 (90Y) into the left joint cavity; 7 were injected with 400 muCi. The animals were sacrificed at 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks and at 6 and 12 months after the injection. The right knee joint served as control for assessment of untreated allergic arthritis. Morphological control of the severity of the arthritis was provided by sacrificing 2 uninjected animals 13 weeks after immunization.