Prosthetic synovitis: clinical and histologic characteristics.

Our study of 20 patients correlates the clinical picture of each patient with the pathology of synovial tissue obtained at the time of revision arthroplasty. While 12 patients had rheumatoid arthritis and 8 had osteoarthritis, the histopathology was identical. Additionally, while 15 of the 20 had an etiology for the revision, 5 patients were revised for pain alone with no explanation other than the synovitis. The characteristic histologic findings included lining cell hyperplasia, vascular congestion, giant cells, brightly birefringent high density polyethylene chards and cysts that represented ghosts of methyl methacrylate debris.