Monitoring of experimental arthritis in rabbits

The effect of ambient temperature and air flow on the radiometric measurement of experimental arthritis in rabbit knee joints has been studied. Temperature changes due to inflammation in such joints could be detected up to 70 days after induction of the arthritis by the use of radiometry. The method has been used to quantitate the anti-inflammatory activity of intra-articularly injected cortisol acetate and orally administered aspirin. It is suggested that this method of noninvasive monitoring has a number of advantages over other procedures.