Considering the high frequency of degenerative-dystrophic diseases of the joints and the constant growth of morbidity, the improvement of treatment conservative approaches is an urgent task of modern medicine. Background: to evaluate the effectiveness of using Artro-Patch (3 % hyaluronic acid solution, 3 ml) in patients with stage II knee osteoarthritis and the need to perform preliminary aspiration of arthritic fluid before intraarticular injection. Materials and methods. 60 patients with stage II knee osteoarthritis who were treated with the use of Artro-Patch (3 % hyaluronic acid solution, 3 ml) were examined. The average age is 45.56 ± 8.61 years. The group includes 38 (63.33 %) women and 22 (36.67 %) men. Among them 2 groups were formed. Patients of group 1 (n = 30) received intra-articular injection of Artro-Patch. Patients of group 2 (n = 30) were injected with Artro-Patch with prior aspiration of arthritic synovial fluid. Clinical outcomes were assessed using the WOMAC questionnaire at admission, 30 days, and 90 days after the procedure. The StatSoft STATISTICA 13 program was used for statistical analysis. The probability of an error-free forecast was set at p < 0.05. Results. As a result of using Artro-Patch in patients with stage II knee osteoarthritis, it was possible to achieve a reliable improvement of all clinical indicators determined by the WOMAC questionnaire. It has been proven that performing a preliminary aspira-tion of arthritic fluid before intra-articular injection of Artro-Patch leads to the development of a more stable and better clinical result at 30 days, with subsequent positive dynamics up to 90 days of observation. Conclusions. Thus, the high effectiveness of using Artro-Patch drug in the treatment of stage II knee osteoarthritis has been proven. To achieve a stable and better clinical result, it is recommended to perform a preliminary aspiration of arthritic fluid before intra-articular injection of the drug.

Background. Currently, bone cements are widely used in orthopedics. The range of prescriptions for bone cement use is very large, and requires different qualities depending on the purpose. Therefore, researchers are forced to conduct their own invetigations to study the mechanical properties of bone cements. The purpose was to determine in the experiment the value of an elastic modulus and ultimate strength of Palacos bone cements for further use in mathematical models of osteosynthesis and arthroplasty. Materials and methods. Samples of two brands of cement, Palacos R and Palacos fast, were examined. Samples with a diameter of 5 mm and a length of 10 mm were made from each type of cement. The study was carried out 2 hours and 2 days after polymerization. At each stage, 10 cement samples of each type were tested for compression. Results. After 2 hours of polymerization, the Palacos fast samples had a statistically significant advantage in terms of the tensile strength, which was 105.77 ± 3.19 MPa, over the Palacos R — 87.24 ± 3.70 MPa. The higher elastic modulus for Palacos fast samples — 2,942.50 ± 99.67 MPa compared to Palacos R — 82,542.40 ± 65.55 MPa turned out to be statistically significant. Two days after fabrication, the strength characteristics of bone cements changed upward. Thus, the ultimate strength of Palacos fast samples was determined within 116.39 ± 2.85 MPa, which is statistically significant higher than for Palacos R samples for which this indicator was within 95.58 ± 4.53 MPa. Similar tendencies were characteristic of an elastic modulus, which amounted to 3,048.93 ± 108.70 MPa for Palacos fast and 2,642.90 ± 22.93 MPa — for Palacos R samples. The value of the elastic modulus for both brands of bone cement has a statistically significant tendency to increase. On average, an elastic modulus for Palacos R cement increased by 4.0 ± 2.6 %, for Palacos fast samples — by 3.5 ± 1.4 %. Conclusions. Palacos R bone cement by the end of the polymerization process has an elastic modulus of 2,542.40 ± 65.55 MPa and a tensile strength of 87.24 ± 3.70 MPa, which is statistically significant lower (p = 0.001) than thereof Palacos fast cement (2,942.50 ± ± 99.67 MPa and 105.77 ± 3.19 MPa, respectively). The indicators of the tensile strength and elastic modulus of the samples of bone cement of both studied brands have a statistically significant (p = 0.001) tendency to increase within 2 days, on average by 9.6 ± 10.1 % and 3.5 ± 4.0 %, respectively. The obtained elastic modulus and ultimate strength of Palacos R and Palacos fast bone cements can be used for mathematical modeling of various types of arthroplasty.