[Quantitative bone scintigraphy in the study of the sacroiliac joint in chronic inflammatory rheumatism].

Scintillation counting of the sacro-iliac bones using technetium pyrophosphate or diphosphate is a simple examination without danger. The uptake opposite each sacro-iliac bone is assessed by reference to that of the lumbar spine visible on the film. A study of a control group of 81 subjects permits one to determine the existence of variations in relation to age: the fixation is high in subjects under the age of 20 years and reduced in adults aged over 50 years.

[Value of disk puncture in the diagnosis of infectious spondylodiskitis. Apropos of 48 punctures].

The authors report on their experience with discal puncture in the bacteriological diagnosis of 48 infectious spondylodiscites. This technique makes it possible to obtain a bacteriological certitude in 31 cases (65 per cent): Pott's disease (40 per cent) and 12 pyogene spondylodiscites (25 per cent), with 17 punctures remaining negative, including 5 technical failures, the needle not penetrating into the pinched disc. No incident was noted, demonstrating the harmless nature of this method.

[Joint manifestations of Whipple's disease].

Of all the signs of Whipple's disease, the joint manifestations are among the most constant and the earliest to indicate the enteropathy, appearing long before the digestive and general signs. Essentially they consist of painful, peripheral joint manifestations: either simple arthralgia, or true arthritis differing in the degree of pain, the degree of the clinical signs accompanying the pain, the mode of evolution, and the number and the grouping of the joints affected, thus occurring in numerous clinical forms of which the two principal ones are subacute oligoarthritis with a tendency to migrate and chronic polyarthritis that gives rise to few definitive deformations. The radiographic appearance is usually normal.

[Further observations on the presence of iron in the articuler synovial membrane].

In 1971, a study of 66 synovial biopsy samples indicated that the presence of ferric deposits in the subintimal synovial tissue was of real semiological value in the diagnosis of rheumatoid synovitis. In 1975, a study of 228 synovial biopsy samples led the authors to reconsider this finding: the presence of ferric deposits in the subintimal synovial tissue was far from being a constant feature in rheumatoid synovitis and it was seen with similar frequency in other forms of chronic inflammatory rheumatism and also in several other joint conditions. The origin of the synovial iron and the influence it may have on the development of the rheumatoid processes remain obscure.

[Sacro-iliac osteochondritis (author's transl)].

Sacro-iliac osteochondritis is difficult to recognize, it is rather frequently a case of diagnosis by elimination, which can be only confirmed by the course. Its prognosis is excellent. The predominance of lesions on the iliac edge reflects the affinity of this epiphysitis for the accessory iliac ossification point.

[Value and limitatious of scintigraphy of the sacro-iliac joints using technetium pyrophosphate].

Scintigraphic exploration of the sacroiliac (S.I.) joints by 99 m-technetium pyrophosphate is simple and free of all danger.