Abstract
Cartilage repair is still a major challenging issue after high impact sports injury. Extensive therapeutic exercises, such as continuous passive motion, or progressive weight bearing exercise, have been implemented in early clinical rehabilitation stage for cartilage injury. Above-mentioned exercises provide beneficial effects in the articular joint status and cartilage healing. However, the feasibility of osteochondral defects receiving early immediate weight-bearing exercise is not concluded. PURPOSE: To investigate whether the osteochondral defects could be improved healing after early immediate weight-bearing conditioning treadmill exercise. METHODS: All surgical procedures were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee. Eight adults New Zealand White male rabbits were studied, providing 8 knees in each for treadmill exercise group (TRE) and sedentary control group (SED). An osteochondral cartilage defects, 3 mm in depth and 3 mm in diameter, in patellofemoral groove was created with drill. In TRE group, the rabbits were performed by a progressive exercise at postoperative week 4 for 2 weeks. In SED group, no exercise was given. All of rabbits’ functional activity determined by observing behavior, drinking and eat, and body weight, skin wound condition, as well as body temperature indicating circulation changes were measured. The macroscopic cartilage and bone matrix determined by bone volume per tissue volume (BV/TV) and trabecular thickness (TbTh) using micro-CT analysis were evaluated at postoperative week 6. RESULTS: After exercise, the body temperature was significant higher than resting status (post-exercise: 40.73 ± 0.97°C vs resting: 35.9 ± 0.43°C, p<0.001). At week 6, compared to the SED group, the TRE group had a significant increase body weight (TRE: 2.5 ± 0.18 kg vs SED: 2.23 ± 0.27 kg, p=0.04), obvious cartilage-like reparative matrix at defects, visible new osseous tissue formation, and a significant higher BV/TV (TRE: 25.82 ± 6.75% vs SED: 16.97 ± 8.05 %, p=0.04). No significant differences between groups regarding functional recovery time, wound condition and TbTh (TRE: 0.21 ± 0.03 mm vs SED: 0.16 ± 0.04 mm) were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Early progressive weight-bearing treadmill exercise could potentially improve for healing of cartilage and bone defects in the rabbit model.
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