Effectiveness

There are other treatments that can be employed for synovitis:

• Surgical (open or arthroscopic) synovectomy. This treatment is used for many forms of arthritis.

• Intra-articular osmic acid or chemical synovectomy (hardly used anymore).

• The indications for these other treatments are similar to those for radiosynoviorthesis, and these methods deliver similar effects.

• However, advantages of radiosynoviorthesis over surgical synovectomy are:

• Radiosynoviorthesis is a simple procedure which is not very demanding of the patient;

• It requires no anaesthetic;

• The rehabilitation time is short;

• The duration for admission is shorter.

A disadvantage of radiosynoviorthesis is the potential leakage of the radiopharmaceutical to the lymph nodes and liver. However, this is normally below 5% of the injected activity [6].