The knee osteoarthritis is one of the most disabling diseases in the world. It presents
complex pathophysiology, where a series of mechanical and inflammatory
interactions promote the destruction of the joint surface, synovitis, stiffness and loss
of function. The diagnosis depends of clinical and imaging signs, it is usually late and
at a stage where the process has already irreversible. The aim of our study was to
comparatively analyze changes in articular cartilage in the knees of rats with induced
osteoarthritis that received intra-articular infiltration of liposome-coated clodronate,
seeking to correlate the early structural changes in articular cartilage with the
concentration of serum degradation biomarker collagen, the presence in the serum of
the cytokine Interleukin 10 (IL-10) and to identify the possible beneficial and
preventive effects in osteoarthritis by inactivating macrophages on the surface of the
synovium. Twenty-one Wistar rats were used in the experiments, divided into 3
groups. One group, designated as control, did not receive any type of treatment, the
other 2 groups induced osteoarthritis (OA) through transection of anterior cruciate
ligament (TLAC). In the groups submitted to TLAC, one group (n = 7) received
intraarticular knee infiltration with clodronate liposome and the other group (n = 7)
received saline solution, these procedures occurred seven days before the TLAC
surgical procedure. During the experiment, blood samples were collected for
laboratory evaluation on the seventh day and on the twenty-first postoperative day
(PO) when the animals were euthanized and material for histology was collected.
The results identified that the extracellular matrix degradation biomarker was not able
to identify early changes in cartilage in the time adopted for the experiment, that it
was not possible to determine significant concentrations of IL-10 systemic in this
period, that the technique employed in inducing osteoarthritis is adequate
methodology for this type of study, and that histology has a fundamental role in the
identification of the initial changes in the implantation of osteoarthritis. An important
finding to be highlighted is that the use of liposome clodronate seems to have a
protective effect on articular cartilage.
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