Effect of Repetitive Impulsive Loading on the Knee Joints of Rabbits

Sports, Joint Injury, and Posttraumatic Osteoarthritis

“…44,49,63 Most clinical and experimental studies of the relationships between joint loading and joint degeneration have focused on knee joints. 10,12,13,20,23,26,93 Because joints differ in their congruity, their stability, their articular structural, mechanical, and biological properties of cartilage, and their risk of posttraumatic osteoarthritis, observations based on studies of knees may not be directly applicable to other joints. 4,28,50 …”

Gene-based approaches for the repair of articular cartilage

“…This may initially heal to resemble hyaline cartilage after 6-8 months, but in the longer term becomes increasingly populated with type I collagen, degenerating to a fibrocartilaginous scar tissue that does not have the appropriate physical and mechanical properties, and ultimately fails. [3][4][5] The specialized architecture and limited repair capacity of articular cartilage coupled with the high physical demands on this tissue make it exceedingly difficult to treat medically. There is currently no regimen, either pharmacologic or surgical, that is capable of restoring damaged cartilage to its normal phenotype.…”

Corroboration of in vivo cartilage pressures with implications for synovial joint tribology and osteoarthritis causation

“…' A decade or more likely passes before cartilage has fissured to the point where bone contact instigates pain, the clinical sign of arthritis. That mechanical factors may contribute to the initiation or progression of cartilage destruction (4,5) is suggested both by the high loads the joints support and the absence in cartilage of the usual mediators of physiological communication: the tissue is avascular as well as aneural. Again quoting from the web page of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (3): ''Mechanical load across joints is critically important for the maintenance of cartilage, and abnormal mechanical loading of joints can lead to pathological conditions.'…”