J Korean Orthop Assoc.  1977 Dec;12(4):643-665. 10.4055/jkoa.1977.12.4.643.

The experimental study on the influence of the gold salts and estrogen to the synovium and bone marrow in rabbits

• Lee KZ

• KMID: 2460665
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4055/jkoa.1977.12.4.643

Abstract

Gold salts have been used in the treatment of the rheumatiod arthritis for nearly 40 years. While the effectiveness is not consistant, their clinical application has been well established and conflicting results concerning the effectiveness of gold salts on adjuvant arthitis in rat have been reported. In light of conflicting reports in the literature we made an experimental study to observe the influence of gold salts and estrogen on the histopathology of the synovium in normal and hemarthrosis joints with bone marrow findings in rabbits in our test conditions. Rabbits weighing about 2kg were devided into 6 major groups of control, estrogen, gold, high dosage gold, and high dosage gold and estrogen. Each group subdivided into male group and female group. Estrogen(estradiol benzoate) and gold(sodium aurothioumalate) were injected intramuscularly at weekly intervals for 10 weeks. Autologous blood 1cc was injected into left knee joint through infrapatellar tendon after 10 weeks of treatment and right knee reserved as a control. Animals in each group were sacrifieced at day 1, 3, 7 after hemarthrosis and serial section from the synovial membrane and bone marrow were made. The following conclusions were obtained from observation of the experiment; 1. The mean hemoglobin levels were decreased in all groups including control, however, the decrease was most significant in estrogen treated group. 2. The mean W.B.C. count level during experiment decreased significantly in the experimental groups treated with large amount of gold and large amount of gold and estrogen. 3. In W.B.C. differential count, decrease of segmented neutrophils with increased lymphocyte was noted in the group treated with large amount of gold. 4. The plasma globulin level was decreased in all groups except the control and estrogen only treated groups, while total protein level was not changed. 5. The marrow cellularity was significantly decreased in all of the gold treated groups with increased percentage of lymphocyte, plasma cell, histiocyte and tissue basophils indicating the bone marow depression. The decreased cellularity in estrogen combined groups is less significant than in gold only treated groups. 6. The synovial changes in normal knee joints (right) were not significant. 7. The synovium of hemoarthrosed knee with autologus whole blood showed variable histopathological changes; Inflammatory responses with the proliferation of synovial cells and villi were significantly depressed in gold and gold with estrogen treated groups at the day 3 of hemarthrosis. The proliferative responses and inflammatory cell infiltrations were almost completely recovered to the normal synovium by the 7th day of hemarthrosis in gold treated groups still showing proliferative and inflammatory responses.

MeSH Terms

Animals
Arthritis
Bone Marrow*
Depression
Estrogens*
Female
Hemarthrosis
Histiocytes
Humans
Joints
Knee
Knee Joint
Lymphocytes
Male
Mast Cells
Neutrophils
Plasma
Plasma Cells
Rabbits*
Rats
Salts*
Synovial Membrane*
Tendons
Estrogens
Salts