Surgical denervation significantly reduces articular synovitis in patients with osteoarthritis of the first carpometacarpal joint

Objectives. To test the hypotheses that surgical joint denervation produces a significant reduction of synovitis possibly through a depletion of intra-articular inflammatory neuropeptides such as substance P and CGRP.Methods. Retrospective analysis of sonographic Doppler images was used to assess the synovitic changes in 16 first carpometacarpal joints of 15 patients (mean age 63.31 +/- 8.20) that had undergone surgical denervation to treat osteoarthritic pain. We used a paired t-test to compare Doppler sonographic image differences between two time-points, pre-operative and at least six months after the operation in order to evaluate variations in articular synovitis.Results. A significant difference (p