The use of autologous adult allogenic juvenile a

Authors: Davide Edoardo Bonasia James A Martin Antonio Marmotti Gail L Kurriger Abigail D Lehman Roberto Rossi Annunziato Amendola

Publish Date: 2015/02/10

Volume: 24, Issue: 12, Pages: 3988-3996

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Abstract

Fiftyeight adult 16 week old and five juvenile 6 week old New Zealand White female rabbits were used A large osteochondral defect was created in the center of the femoral trochlea of adult rabbits The rabbits were divided in four groups Group 1 = untreated defects controls Group 2 = adult cartilage fragments Group 3 = juvenile cartilage fragments and Group 4 = adult + juvenile cartilage fragments Killings were performed at 3 and 6 months The defects were evaluated with ICRS macroscopic score modified O’Driscoll score and Collagen type II immunostainingAt 3 months Group 4 performed better than Group 1 in terms of modified O’Driscoll score p = 0001 and Collagen type II immunostaining p = 0015 At 6 months Group 4 showed higher modified O’Driscoll score p = 0003 and Collagen type II immunostaining score p  0001 than Group 1 Histologically also Group 3 performed better than Group 1 p = 003 and Group 4 performed better than Group 2 p = 0004Mixing adult and juvenile cartilage fragments improved cartilage repair in a rabbit model In the clinical setting a new “onestage” procedure combining the two cartilage sources can be hypothesized with the advantages of improved chondral repair and large defect coverage because of the use of an offtheshelf juvenile allograft Further studies on larger animals and clinical trials are required to confirm these results

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