Musculo-skeletal joint inflammatory diseases - New vistas from animal model studies – An overview

The term ‘Arthritis’ refers to all categories of musculo-skeletal joint inflammatory diseases. The different profiles of arthriticmanifestations include rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis,osteoarthritis, polyarthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE),juvenile arthritis, gout and psoriatic arthritis etc. All theseinflammatory diseases are characterized by chronicity and nonreversible nature of the pathogenesis. All types of arthritis showsome common pathological changes like synovial hypertrophy,microvascular abnormalities, leucocytes infiltration, neovascularisation etc. Though animal model studies on human diseasesmay not fully mimic the real in vivo intricacies of human diseases,certain aspects of such studies and comparison of the findings to real situations may provide insights into the etiological, pathological and therapeutic profiles.