Clinical application of near infrared fiber optic spectroscopy for noninvasive bone assessment.

Approaches for noninvasive bone quality assessment are of great clinical need, particularly in individuals that require close monitoring of disease progression. X-ray measurements are standard approaches to assess bone quality; however, they have several disadvantages. Here, a nonionizing approach for noninvasive assessment of the second metacarpal bone based on near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was investigated.

Ethics of Using Animal Models as Predictors of Human Response in Tissue Engineering.

Use of outcomes from animal research for prediction of human response in tissue engineering studies has many ethical considerations. This article aims to contribute to the ethical discussion by delineating the framework of animal research and the ethical considerations at play, in particular with respect to cartilage tissue engineering. The history of animal research regulation and the current status of animal research in orthopedic tissue engineering is discussed.

Spatial correlation of native and engineered cartilage components at micron resolution.

Tissue engineering (TE) approaches are being widely investigated for repair of focal defects in articular cartilage. However, the amount and/or type of extracellular matrix (ECM) produced in engineered constructs does not always correlate with the resultant mechanical properties. This could be related to the specifics of ECM distribution throughout the construct.

Non-Destructive Spectroscopic Assessment of High and Low Weight Bearing Articular Cartilage Correlates with Mechanical Properties.

Objective: Autologous articular cartilage (AC) harvested for repair procedures of high weight bearing (HWB) regions of the femoral condyles is typically obtained from low weight bearing (LWB) regions, in part due to the lack of non-destructive techniques for cartilage composition assessment. Here, we demonstrate that infrared fiber optic spectroscopy can be used to non-destructively evaluate variations in compositional and mechanical properties of AC across LWB and HWB regions.

Design: AC plugs ( = 72) were harvested from the patellofemoral groove of juvenile bovine stifle joints, a LWB region, and femoral condyles, a HWB region.