Relationship between knee and ankle degeneration in a population of organ donors.

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive degenerative condition of synovial joints in response to both internal and external factors. The relationship of OA in one joint of an extremity to another joint within the same extremity, or between extremities, has been a topic of interest in reference to the etiology and/or progression of the disease.

Methods: The prevalence of articular cartilage lesions and osteophytes, characteristic of OA, was evaluated through visual inspection and grading in 1060 adult knee/tali pairs from 545 cadaveric joint donors.

Distinguishing ankle and knee articular cartilage.

Degenerative changes in the tall and femoral distal cartilages of more than 2,000 tissue donors were graded based on the appearance of articular cartilage and osteophytes. In the ankle and the knee the degenerative changes increased with age; however, the rate of degeneration in the ankle was slower than in the knee. The degenerative changes in the ankle were more severe in men than in women, were predominantly bilateral, and seemed to be correlated with weight.

Matrix homeostasis in aging normal human ankle cartilage.

Objective: To study age-related (as opposed to arthritis-related) changes in collagen and proteoglycan turnover.

Methods: Macroscopically nondegenerate normal ankle cartilage obtained from 30 donors (ages 16-75 years) was processed for in situ hybridization to detect messenger RNA (mRNA) of type IIB collagen (CIIB); antibodies to the C-propeptide of type II collagen (CPII), to the type II collagen (CII) collagenase-generated cleavage neoepitope (Col2-3/4C(short)), and to the CII denaturation product (Col2-3/4m) were used for immunohistochemistry analysis and immunoassay. In addition, immunoblotting was used to detect the 4 collagenases.