A biomechanical model of knee osteoarthritis and stress characteristics on the cartilage surface / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Knee osteoarthritis is a chronic disease characterized as cartilage degeneration and hyperostosis to impact the soft tissues around the joints, thereby resulting in joint pain, and it can be aggravated and lead to joint deformity after weight-bearing. OBJECTIVE:On the basis of imaging parameters of knee osteoarthritis patients and normal controls, a model was established. And then, knee squatting movement was simulated on the model and stress data from the cartilage surface of patients and normal controls were colected and compared, thereby to obtain the stress characteristics of the cartilage surface in knee osteoarthritis patients. METHODS: There were 30 knee osteoarthritis patients and 30 healthy volunteers in the study. CT and MRI data from these participants were colected and analyzed using Mimics software and simpleware software to establish a model. Based on this model, cartilage-related stress data were harvested from knee osteoarthritis patients and healthy volunteers and compared to summarize the stress characteristics of the articular cartilage in patients with knee osteoarthritis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:In knee osteoarthritis patients, the stress on the cartilage surface from standing to squatting was increased in a nonlinear manner. During the process of squatting, the mediolateral stress was higher in the knee osteoarthritis patients than healthy controls (P 0.05). These findings indicate that the knee osteoarthritis musculoskeletal model and finite element model are established successfuly, and these models are closer to the real motion characteristics of the knee joints, based on which, quantitative biomechanical data of the knee can be provided for knee osteoarthritis treatment.