Abstract
Meniscal injury is typically treated surgically via partial meniscectomy, which has been shown to cause cartilage degeneration in the long-term. Consequently, research has focused on meniscal prevention and replacement. However, none of the materials or implants developed for meniscal replacement have yet achieved widespread acceptance or demonstrated conclusive chondroprotective efficacy.A redesigned silk fibroin scaffold, which already displayed promising results regarding biocompatibility and cartilage protection in a previous study, was characterised in terms of its biomechanical, structural and biological functionality to serve as a potential material for permanent partial meniscal replacement. Therefore, different quasi-static but also dynamic compression tests were performed. However, the determined compressive stiffness (0.56 ± 0.31 MPa and 0.30 ± 0.12 MPa in relaxation and creep configuration, respectively) was higher in comparison to the native meniscal tissue, which could potentially disturb permanent integration into the host tissue. Nevertheless, µ-CT analysis met the postulated requirements for partial meniscal replacement materials in terms of the microstructural parameters, like mean pore size (215.6 ± 10.9 µm) and total porosity (80.1 ± 4.3%). Additionally, the biocompatibility was reconfirmed during cell culture experiments. The current study provides comprehensive mechanical and biological data for the characterisation of this potential replacement material. Although some further optimisation of the silk fibroin scaffold may be advantageous, the silk fibroin scaffold showed sufficient biomechanical competence to support loads already in the early postoperative phase.
Highlights
The menisci are two crescent-shaped fibrocartilaginous structures, located between the femur and tibia in the knee joint
Tensile test to failure Within this study, the tensile properties of a potential material for partial meniscal replacement were investigated for the first time using dumbbell-shaped samples (Fig. 3)
Comparing the obtained data with Yan et al (2012), who investigated the dynamic compressive properties of silk fibroin scaffolds prepared with four different initial silk concentrations, with the scaffold tested in the current study, we found the material tested in this study to be two- to three-fold stiffer
Summary
The menisci are two crescent-shaped fibrocartilaginous structures, located between the femur and tibia in the knee joint. Meniscectomy can cause degeneration of the articular cartilage in the long-term (Hede et al, 1992; Baratz et al, 1986; Seitz et al, 2012; Fairbank, 1948; Roos et al, 1998; Englund and Lohmander, 2004) This is due to the fact that a decreased contact area after meniscal resection leads to increased stress on the articular surface (Fukubayashi and Kurosawa, 1980), which becomes greater with increased removal of meniscal tissue (Baratz et al, 1986; Lee et al, 2006; Ahmed and Burke, 1983)
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