Scurvy and hemarthrosis.

Scurvy developed in a 56-year-old man with poor dietary intake and was associated with knee hemarthroses and synovial thickening. The synovial membrane showed interstitial hemorrhage and many large fibroblasts but little collagen and some disarray of vascular basement membrane. Hemarthroses and all knee symptoms completely resolved on a normal diet. To our knowledge, these are the first electron-microscopic studies of synovial membrane in human scurvy, and our findings support a defect in collagen synthesis as a factor in etiology.