Synovial fluid analysis: Relevance for daily clinical practice

Synovial fluid analysis can provide a prompt and definite diagnosis of crystal-induced arthritis, the most common acute inflammatory arthritis and a cause of chronic arthritis that may mimic rheu-matoid, psoriatic, or peripheral spondyloarthritis. In many patients the diagnosis of gout or calcium pyrophosphate arthritis cannot be made with certainty without synovial fluid analysis. Additional information from fluid analysis can assist the clinician in honing the differential diagnosis of non-crystalline arthritis.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/).