Orthopaedic pathology is still a challenging area for many surgical pathologists. Medical school education provides only superficial information about the physiology of the musculoskeletal system and the pathobiology of the many diseases that affect it. Most pathology residency programs do not have the diagnostic expertise or adequate volume of orthopaedic specimens to appropriately train aspiring pathologists. Accordingly, the practicing surgical pathologist is often ill-prepared and lacks the skills and insight to interpret accurately tissue specimens from the musculoskeletal system.

Therefore, the purpose of this course is to improve the pathologist's skills in interpreting the morphologic manifestations of a variety of important orthopaedic diseases. This course will: 1) Discuss the differential diagnosis of osteoarthritis and non-infectious inflammatory arthridites. 2) Explain the morphologic changes associated with prostheses and associated complications. 3) Review the major types of crystal deposition diseases. 4) Clarify issues associated with joint tumors and their mimics. 5) Address important problems in the differential diagnosis of cartilage and bone forming tumors. 6) Present specific issues of malignant small round cell tumors of bone.

The course will combine case presentations with formal didactic discussion for each topic. At the conclusion of this course attendees will be able to: 1) Define and recognize different kinds of arthritis; 2) Interpret the pathology of prosthetic joints and the manifestations of secondary infection; 3) Diagnose common synovial tumors and their mimics; 4) Distinguish benign cartilage tumors from chondrosarcoma; accurately recognize stress fracture and benign bone forming tumors separate them from osteosarcoma; and 5) Generate an appropriate differential diagnosis for malignant small round cell tumors and perform and interpret appropriate ancillary studies to generate a precise diagnosis.

We anticipate that this course will benefit pathology residents, general pathologist, pathologists with special expertise in the subject, orthopaedists, and radiologists and their residents as well.

Pre-registrants will be able to view case histories and virtual slide of the study cases, prior to the meeting on the USCAP website. A comprehensive syllabus will be distributed at the course. After the meeting, all course registrants will have access to the PowerPoint presented at the Annual Meeting along with the text portion of the syllabus on the USCAP website.

(LAST SCHEDULED PRESENTATION) This course may be used for CME credits or SAM credits.