AVA Conference Adelaide 2016

A systematic diagnostic approach to a patient with lameness and accurate joint fluid analysis provides important tools for the classification of arthropathies in small animals. Synovial fluid analysis should provide a minimum database for the clinical work-up of joint disease and is a critical component in determining the cause of disease. Aspects of complete analysis should include: proper sample collection protocols, gross appearance, colour and viscosity of fluid, nucleated cell counts, protein concentration measurements and cytologic evaluation of cells. Standardized methods to these steps should provide an accurate classification and differentiation of common diseases. These diseases can then be classified according to inflammatory disease, degenerative disease, haemarthrosis or neoplasia. The inflammatory disease aspect can also be importantly sub-divided into infectious and non-infectious (immune-mediated) causes. There also some limitations and challenges of additional testing procedures such as fluid culture and anti-nuclear antibody testing, that must also be considered. This presentation summarizes joint fluid analysis and cytology within the clinical pathology