The move away from ‘tendinitis’: decade of the 1990s
Initially recognised by Puddu et al4 as long ago as the 1970s, in chronic tendinopathy there is an absence of acute inflammatory cells in the load-bearing regions of tendons.4 As histological data became more readily available this view became increasingly recognised. Several studies demonstrated collagen separation, thinning and disruption without an inflammatory cell infiltrate.5–7 There was also evidence from some animal studies that degenerative non-inflammatory tendon changes could be experimentally introduced over a brief (1 or 2 week) period.8 The pathology of chronic tendon disorders was correctly recognised as being very different from that of a characteristically inflammatory disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA).