Abstract
BackgroundOsteoarthritis is thought to be the most prevalent chronic and disabling joint disease in animals and humans. At present, there is no ideal treatment option. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of the treatment with oral diacerein on articular cartilage, synovial membrane and subchondral bone in an experimental rabbit model of osteoarthritis by micro-CT evaluation and histological analysis. To this purpose, osteoarthritis was surgically induced on one knee of 16 rabbits using the contralateral knee as healthy controls. Treatment was started three weeks later and lasted eight weeks. Animals were divided into two groups for treatment: Placebo (treated daily with oral saline) and diacerein (treated orally with 1.5 mg/kg/day of diacerein).ResultsSample analysis revealed that this model induced osteoarthritis in the operated knee joint. Osteoarthritis placebo group showed a significant increase in non-calcified cartilage thickness and volume with respect to the control placebo group and important changes in the synovial membrane; whereas the parameters measured in subchondral bone remained unchanged. In the osteoarthritis diacerein-treated group the results showed an improvement with respect to the OA placebo group in all parameters, although the results were not statistically significant.ConclusionThe results of this animal study suggested that the diacerein treatment for OA may be able to ameliorate the swelling and surface alterations of the cartilage and exert an anti-inflammatory effect on the synovial membrane, which might contribute to OA improvement, as well as an anabolic effect on subchondral trabecular bone.
Highlights
Osteoarthritis is thought to be the most prevalent chronic and disabling joint disease in animals and humans
The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of the treatment with oral diacerein in an experimental early rabbit model of OA; histology and histomorphometry techniques were used and the results were compared with a new methodology to determine the cartilage and subchondral bone structure, using micro-computed tomography without contrast techniques
In relation to the cartilage surface undulations (FI) there were no statistical differences between groups, but an almost significant reduction (p = 0.06) of fibrillation was found between OA and OA + DC groups (Fig. 3), the latter reaching values similar to both control groups (CTRL and CTRL + DC)
Summary
Osteoarthritis is thought to be the most prevalent chronic and disabling joint disease in animals and humans. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of the treatment with oral diacerein on articular cartilage, synovial membrane and subchondral bone in an experimental rabbit model of osteoarthritis by micro-CT evaluation and histological analysis. To this purpose, osteoarthritis was surgically induced on one knee of 16 rabbits using the contralateral knee as healthy controls. Current treatment options are focused on pain relief and improvement of joint function, including analgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; their use in chronic treatments has been limited by the deleterious side effects on cartilage [3] and gastrointestinal tract [4]. Recent studies have described drugs with the ability of providing symptomatic
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