Abstract

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmuno disease with typical injury in synovial membrane at small and medium joint. In the late stage or some special clinical forms with knee synovial membrane damage, the histopathological analysis of the knee synovial membrane has contributed to explaining the pathogenesis as well as the relationship between histopathological and clinical and subclinical features, with the process of diagnosis and treatment of RA. Objectives: To describe histopathological characteristics of knee synovial membrane in patients rheumatoid arthritis at Musculoskeletal Department, Thai Nguyen National Hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 20 RA patients who had knee synovial biopsy. Results: Characteristics of proliferation of synovial lining cells: there were 38.5% of specimens which had normal proliferation of synovial lining cells (1-2 layers), 38.5% was large proliferation (>7 layers). The percentage of specimens which had neovascularization accounted for 60.0% and 65.0% fibrosis. Characteristic of leukocyte infiltration: There were 19 specimens which had leukocyte infiltration. In which, there were 15.8% normal infiltration, both little and medium infiltration was 26.3% and much infiltration was 31.6%. There were 16 specimens had lymphoid cell infiltration (80.0%). There were 7 specimens which had fibrinoid necrosis and 3 specimens have synovial proliferation (villi) (15.0%) in histopathological.