Effects of Different Therapies on Articular Cartilage in Experimental Severe Osteoarthritis
2 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Ege University School of Medicine, İzmir, Turkey
3 Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Patoloji Anabilim Dalı, İzmir
Objective: To examine the effect of intraarticular injections of methylprednisolone, hyaluronic acid and therapeutic ultrasound on osteoarthritic lesions in experimental severe osteoarthritis (OA).
Materials and Methods: Thirty five adult white New Zealand rabbits were used in this study. The experimental OA was induced by the injection of papain (2 mg) to the knee joints bilaterally. Five weeks after the intraarticular injection of papain, rabbits were divided into 3 groups. Group 1: In 12 rabbits, 20 mg methylprednisolone was injected into the right knee once weekly for three weeks. Group 2: In 10 rabbits, 0.4 ml of HA (concentration 15 mg per ml) was injected into the right knee once weekly for three weeks. Group 3: In 10 rabbits 7 min. pulse sonication (US) was applied to the right knees with an intensity of 0.5 W/cm2 once daily for a total of 10 times. The left knee joints were used as controls. Surface cartilage lesions on the condyles and plateaus was evaluated macroscobically, where as lesion severity was evaluated histologically.
Results: There were no significant differences between the groups for macroscopic and histologic grades of cartilage lesions on condyles and plateaus at the end of the treatment (p>0.05). Furthermore no statistically significant difference was observed between the treated and control knees of the rabbits in each group (p>0.05).
Conclusion: In this study, none of the treatments applied were found to be effective in cartilage lesions in severe OA.
Keywords : Experimental osteoarthritis, management