Changes in osteoarthritis joint appear in the articular cartilage, synovium and in subchondral bone. It is necessary to find, apart from markers of cartilage destruction, a sensitive and specific biochemical marker which would reflect the metabolism as well as degradation of subchondral bone. Bone sialoprotein is mostly synthesized in osseous tissue found directly under the surface of joint car...

Activins are proinflammatory cytokines which belong to the TGFβ superfamily. Follistatin is an extracellular decoy receptor for activins. Since both activins and follistatin are expressed in articular cartilage, we hypothesized that activin-follistatin signaling participates in the process of joint inflammation and cartilage degeneration. To test this hypothesis, we examined the effects of foll...

Hyaline cartilage was obtained from patients undergoing synovectomy of the knee joint for rheumatoid arthritis. Eroded cartilage from beneath the invading pannus and relatively normal cartilage from the same joint were maintained in organ culture for three days. During the first 48 hours in culture the explants were exposed to 35SO4 in the medium. The equivalent layers of normal and eroded cart...

1.1 Anatomy and knee joint function The knee joint is classified as a modified hinge joint, with its structure providing a highly mobile and complex joint (fig.1). It consists of two condylar joints between the medial and lateral condyles of the femur and the corresponding plateaus of the tibia, and anteriorly a synovial plane patellofemoral joint. The articular surface of the knee is covered b...

A joint affected with rheumatoid arthritis undergoes a number of pathological changes. The synovial membrane proliferates and begins to show round cell infiltration. Degenerative and proliferative changes are encountered in the arterioles and venules of the synovial membrane. Local necroses occur here and there in the tissue. The articular cartilage becomes thinner and spots of erosion appear i...

Introduction The load response of a knee joint is dominated by the mechanical properties of articular cartilage, which consists of proteoglycan matrix, collagen fiber network and a fluid. The interplay of these three constituents determines the load support of articular cartilage in the joint. Finite element analysis has been widely applied to study joint mechanics. Accurate knee contact geomet...

The World Health Organisation has declared the period 2000 to 2010 the Bone and Joint Decade. This is indeed timely and appropriate. Hundreds of millions of people in the world today are beset with a host of disabilities caused by trauma, ageing and degeneration and other affections of the musculo-skeletal system. With the state of art of orthopaedic surgery and rheumatology, sufferers of bone ...

Osteoarthritis, the most prevalent form of joint disease, afflicts 9% of the U.S. population over the age of 30 and costs the economy nearly $100 billion annually in healthcare and socioeconomic costs. It is characterized by joint pain and dysfunction, though the pathophysiology remains largely unknown. Due to its avascular nature and limited cellularity, articular cartilage exhibits a poor int...

INTRODUCTION Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic disease characterized by the focal deterioration and abrasion of articular cartilage. The goals of therapy are preserving normal joint function, relieving pain and improving quality of life (QOL). This study is performed to investigate whether glocosamine sulfate and exercise could both delay joint structure degradation evaluated with magnetic reson...

Proteoglycan-4 (Prg4) protects synovial joints from arthropathic changes by mechanisms that are incompletely understood. Parathyroid hormone (PTH), known for its anabolic actions in bone, increases Prg4 expression and has been reported to inhibit articular cartilage degeneration in arthropathic joints. To investigate the effect of Prg4 and PTH on articular cartilage, 16-week-old Prg4 mutant and...