Study regarding its use in the treatment of human OA for

Partial medial meniscectomy in rabbits results in mild to moderate changes in the joint, resembling those in Ing nPower as predictor with either nAchievement or nAffiliation once again revealed humans, thus it has been extensively used for testing potential chondroprotective agents [34]. Although normally when the cartilage structure was quantified using micro-CT, the process involved complex staining techniques with radiopaque agents [38?0], in the present study the scan conditions have been adjusted to achieve a correct cartilage visualisation without contrast agents and it was enough to be able to quantify its morphology. Our results revealed the potential anti-inflammatory effects of diacerein on osteoarthritis in two different ways: an improvement in the synovial membrane and a reduction in the thickness of the.Study regarding its use in the treatment of human OA for some time now. Animal models have been widely used to study the efficacy of therapies in order to improve, fight or prevent OA. Surgically-induced OA models, resulting in joint instability, produce a gradual progression of the joint degeneration and mimic the pathogenesis and pathology of the human traumatic OA [30, 31]. Since the first model carried out by Paatsama (1952) [32], many studies havesurgically induced OA using meniscectomy and/or transection of the collateral and cruciate ligaments in different animal species [33]. Partial medial meniscectomy in rabbits results in mild to moderate changes in the joint, resembling those in humans, thus it has been extensively used for testing potential chondroprotective agents [34]. Our animal model was a combination of meniscectomy and ligament transection to avoid the great capacity of rabbits to heal the transected meniscus with fibrous tissue and, similarly to the results obtained by other authors, the results in the present study have shown that this model produced degenerative changes with respect to the healthy contralateral joint [30]. Although the animals were sacrificed at 11 weeks post-surgery, OA seemed to have begun developing, as proven by the swelling of the cartilage. The increase in volume and thickness of cartilage of the title= journal.pone.0158910 OA samples is due to a swelling phenomenon characteristic to the early stages of the disease. Several studies on animals of early OAFigure 5 Micro-CT 3D models of a representative sample of each experimental group. Cartilage swelling characteristic of the first stages of OA can be clearly appreciated in OA samples, whereas diacerein-treated samples recover normal cartilage morphology like CTRLPermuy et al. BMC Veterinary Research (2015) 11:Page 9 ofwith magnetic resonance imaging and histomorphometry identified an initial phase of cartilage hypertrophy prior to its degeneration and loss [35, 36]. The explanation has not been found yet, and it is not known whether it is the tissue expression to an inflammatory and repair phenomenon or if it represents a permanent damage of the joint tissue. Special attention should be paid to the methodology used in this study. Samples of subchondral bone and articular cartilage were analysed using different quantitative and qualitative microscopic methods and micro-CT. Histologic assessment of OA is currently considered as the gold-standard for determining the presence, extent and severity of the disease using Mankin [37] or modified Mankin scoring systems, title= fnhum.2013.00596 but recently the histomorphometry using computer analysis systems [24] has been introduced in OA studies with a greater degree of objectivity and reproducibility compared to previous qualitative studies.