Studies of hydration and swelling pressure in normal and osteoarthritic cartilage

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Maroudas, A.^a | Ziv, I.^a | Weisman, N.^a | Venn, M.^b

Affiliations: [a] Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Julius Silver Institute of Biomedical Engineering Sciences, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32 000, Israel | [b] Bone & Joint Research Unit, London Hospital, London, UK

Note: [] Accepted by: Editor A. Maroudas

Abstract: An experimental study was carried out which involved comparing cartilage from normal and osteoarthritic joints with respect to (a) swelling pressure and (b) variation of hydrati.on with applied pressure. The main conclusion was that whilst osteoarthritic cartilage is undoubtedly less able to resist water loss under a given applied pressure than normal cartilage, this is not due to a change in the “quality” of the proteoglycans, resulting in a change in the osmotic pressure of the latter, but simply to a decreased fixed charge density. The latter decrease is either caused by an increase in the water content - and this we attribute to a weakened collagen network - and/or to a loss of part of the proteoglycans from the tissue.

Keywords: Hydration, osteoarthritic cartilage, proteoglycans

DOI: 10.3233/BIR-1985-22206

Journal: Biorheology, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 159-169, 1985