[Indicators of articular cartilage degeneration in synovial fluid]

Detection of proteoglycans in biological fluids is a perspective method for the evaluation of the degree of catabolic processes in articular cartilage. The demand of accuracy and specificity of detection of substructures of the degradation products of the cartilaginous matrix, with the perspective of routine large scale examinations, restricts available possible methods practically only to the use of immunochemical methods. In the present investigation in the inhibitory ELISA test polyclonal antibodies with a double specificity in relation to basic structures of the cartilage--proteoglycans--were used. The highest concentrations of degradation products of proteoglycans in punctates of synovial fluid were found in diseases where the clinical picture is dominated by repeated attacks of the joints with longer remission periods, and where the attack is stimulated, usually by stimuli of an intermittent systemic or exogenous character (gout, reactive arthritis incl. Reiter's syndrome, Lyme disease).