Jan Reinhard, Tamás Oláh, Matthias W Laschke, Lars K H Goebel, Gertrud Schmitt, Susanne Speicher-Mentges, Michael D Menger, Magali Cucchiarini, Dietrich Pape, Henning Madry
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether tibiofemoral alignment influences early knee osteoarthritis (OA). We hypothesized that varus overload exacerbates early degenerative osteochondral changes, and that valgus underload diminishes early OA. METHOD: Normal, over- and underload were induced by altering alignment via high tibial osteotomy in adult sheep (n = 8 each). Simultaneously, OA was induced by partial medial anterior meniscectomy. At 6 weeks postoperatively, OA was examined in five individual subregions of the medial tibial plateau using Kellgren-Lawrence grading, quantification of macroscopic OA, semiquantitative histopathological OA and immunohistochemical type-II collagen, ADAMTS-5, and MMP-13 scoring, biochemical determination of DNA and proteoglycan contents, and micro-computed tomographic evaluation of the subchondral bone...
March 3, 2024: Osteoarthritis and Cartilage