Comparison of rheological and viscoelastic properties of hyaluronic acid for intraarticular injections

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease that affects more than 80% of people over 55 years and in its final stages leads to disability. One of the safe non-surgical methods of OA treatment is intra-articular injections of hyaluronic acid (HA).Objective: to compare the viscoelastic rheological properties of HA medical products with different concentrations of sodium hyaluronate (SH) available in the Russian Federation.Material and methods. The study was carried out using a modular rheometer MCR 302 (Anton Paar, Austria). All measurements were carried out at a temperature of 25.0±0.1 °C using the measuring system "cone-plane" (angle – 2 ˚ , cone diameter – 40 mm, gap height – 0.169 mm). The determination of the elastic moduli (G’) and viscosity (G”) was carried out depending on the frequency in the linear region of the shear stress, and the dynamic viscosity was determined at a shear rate of 1 sec-1.Results. The evaluation of the rheological properties of the studied samples revealed a positive relationship with the concentration of SH and no relationship with the molecular weight of SH. The highest viscoelastic properties were possessed by medical products in the 1% SH group: Armaviscon and Ripart; in the group with SH concentration of 1.5–1.6%, all the studied samples, except for Hyalubrix, showed similar higher results compared to the previous group; in the group with SH concentration of 2–3%, Armaviscon Platinum had the highest results and Flexotron Ultra and Armaviscon Forte – somewhat lower results.Conclusion. The study of the rheological viscoelastic properties of HA medical products is the most accessible method, on the basis of which it is possible to predict the clinical effect.