The history of synovectomy shows that this procedure has had a gradual growth over a period of fifty years and that many surgeons in different countries have contributed to its evolutionary development.
Judging from the author's personal experience and the extensive literature of the past fifteen years, the operation seems to have established for itself a field of usefulness in various kinds of joint disease.
The consensus of opinion is that synovectomy may well be employed in a joint in which extensive induration and fibrosis of the capsule, enlargement of the synovial villi, and persistent increase of joint fluid are present. Such a joint may be caused by: