ABSTRACT
Tenosynovitis is an inflammation of the synovial sheaths that surround tendons at certain points in the body, resulting in pain and swelling. In the UK, tenosynovitis, tendonitis, peritendinitis crepitans and de Quervain’s disease were all classified together by the DHSS as PD A8 ‘Traumatic inflammation of the tendons of the hand or forearm or of the associated tendon sheaths’. J. R. Chipman et al. used the term tendonitis to cover the various disorders listed earlier, including specific tenosynovitis. Studies of ‘tenosynovitis’ frequently include a number of different disorders affecting different anatomical structures and, in some cases, possibly covering a different type of disorder altogether. M. Jarvinen et al. described the histological changes associated with tenosynovitis, tendonitis and related disorders, encompassing tendon-related disorders of a number of different anatomical structures. The absence of strong epidemiological support for the work-relatedness of tenosynovitis/tendinitis is countered by the clear evidence for a causal mechanism for tendon loading and injury.
