[Viewpoint] The relationship between clinical disease activity, synovial inflammatory profile, and treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis

Synovial tissue is widely considered to be a strong candidate for contributing to the development of individualised therapeutic strategies for the treatment and management of rheumatoid arthritis. Recently, several factors have enabled major developments in synovial tissue analysis: (1) improvement in synovial tissue biopsy techniques; (2) availability of powerful biotechnologies with increasing granularity; (3) recruitment of larger cohorts of patients; (4) development of recommendations to standardise synovial tissue analysis; and (5) an expanded therapeutic armamentarium of targeted therapies.