Elsevier

Foot and Ankle Clinics

Volume 8, Issue 2, June 2003, Pages 305-316
Foot and Ankle Clinics

Distinguishing ankle and knee articular cartilage

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1083-7515(03)00012-3Get rights and content

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Joints were obtained from a total of 2142 donors (1866 talocrural donors only, the remainder were knee/ankle donors) through the Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network according to their policies and with Institutional Review Board approval. None of the donors had a known history of joint disease. Donors with obvious bone changes, including fractures, were excluded from the study. Age, gender, race, and cause of death were obtained for each donor. Tali were analyzed from 4005 ankle

Results

The age distribution of the donors whose joints were assessed for this study is shown in Fig. 2. The donor population was 77% male and 23% female, 91% Caucasian, 6% African American, 2% Hispanic, and <1% Asian. Causes of death were recorded as myocardial infarction or cardiopulmonary accident (72%), accidental death (16%), and stroke (12%). Of the 1249 donors that were assessed for weight, 33% of the women and 23% of the men were considered overweight. This profile reflects the donor population

Discussion

Although the relationship of degenerative articular cartilage alterations to clinical/symptomatic OA is unclear, investigators who documented changes, especially in the knee, assumed that the tissue alterations represented pre-OA. Earlier reports on the prevalence of degeneration in the ankle cartilage were contradictory. Our own study [25] that was based on 50 cadaveric specimens reported that 18% of ankles had full-thickness defects (Collins grades 3 and 4); however, the mean age of this

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our appreciation to the Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network (formerly known as The Regional Organ Bank of Illinois) and the donor families for access to the human tissues.

First page preview

First page preview
Click to open first page preview

References (31)

  • M.H. Jahss
    (1982)
  • U.M. Kujala et al.

    Osteoarthritis of weight bearing joints of lower limbs in former elite male athletes

    BMJ

    (1994)
  • K. Huch et al.

    Osteoarthritis in ankle and knee joints

    Sem Arthritis Rheum

    (1996)
  • A.R. Poole et al.

    Changes in cartilage metabolism in arthritis are reflected by altered serum and synovial fluid levels of the cartilage proteoglycan aggrecan. Implications for pathogenesis

    J Clin Invest

    (1994)
  • K.E. Kuettner et al.

    Cartilage integrity and homeostasis

  • Cited by (33)

    • Biochemical cartilage alteration and unexpected signal recovery in T2* mapping observed in ankle joints with mobile MRI during a transcontinental multistage footrace over 4486km

      2014, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage
      Citation Excerpt :

      As such, it was considered to be the only viable option. We hypothesize that the ankle joint will reveal overall superior resilience to degeneration9, unless a pre-existing injury is present. Our goal in this study was to explore the physiological adaptive capacity of the TTJ cartilage under conditions of extreme wear and address the question how much is too much?

    • Osteoarthritis of the Ankle: Bridging Concepts in Basic Science with Clinical Care

      2009, Clinics in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery
      Citation Excerpt :

      Ankle cartilage has a higher equilibrium modulus, greater dynamic stiffness, and lower hydraulic permeability than knee cartilage.65 These properties may provide ankle cartilage with greater resistance to mechanical injury than knee cartilage.65,66 In studies comparing matrix turnover in normal and early-stage OA in ankles and knees, distinct differences were noted in how cartilage from each of these joints responded to injury.

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    This work was supported by Grant No. 2-P50-AR39239 from the National Institutes of Health.

    View full text