Table 1.

Success rate, complications, and tolerability of arthroscopic and US-guided synovial biopsies [1, 3, 13–21]

	Arthroscopic	US-guided biopsy semi-automatic needle	US-guided biopsy portal and forceps
Success rate	> 90%	Around 80–90% depends on US grey scale synovitis grade, joint size, and operator experience	Around 80–90%
Complications	1.51% complication rate, haemarthrosis 0.9%, DVT 0.2%, wound infection 0.1%, joint infection 16 0.1%, thrombophlebitis 0.08%, flare of gout 0.06%, syncope/vasovagal 0.02%, neurological 0.02%	Minor bleeding up to 7.8%, haemarthrosis 0.3–1.3%, neurological up to 3.1%, vasovagal symptoms 0.8 to 3.2%, rare: tenosynovitis	Skin infection (1 of 37 procedures in one study)
Tolerability	62% no or mild discomfort	70–92.8% no or mild discomfort	71% no or mild discomfort
Willingness of repeat biopsy	64% likely or somewhat likely	57–74% likely or somewhat likely	85% likely or somewhat likely

Fewer studies have reported on US-guided port-and-forceps biopsies than arthroscopic and US-guided needle biopsies