Abstract
Objective
 Due to the limited intrinsic healing and repair capacity
 of the articular cartilage, most treatment methods
 cannot achieve reliable regeneration of normal
 hyaline cartilage, resulting in early development
 of osteoarthritis. The purpose of this study was to
 determine the effects of human amniotic fluid and
 membrane on chondral defects.
 Material and Methods
 Sixty-four knees of 32 immature New Zealand rabbits
 were included in the study. Full thickness chondral
 defects were created in the weight-bearing surface of
 the medial condyles of the rabbits. The rabbits were
 divided randomly into four groups: no adjunct treatment
 was given in group 1, 0.3 ml human amniotic fluid
 (HAF) alone in group 2, human amniotic membrane
 (HAM) alone in group 3 and both of 0.3 ml HAF and
 HAM in group 4 was administered. The condyles were
 histopathologically evaluated at 4th and 12th week
 using the modified O’Driscoll Grading Scale.
 Results
 There were no significant differences in the quality
 of the regenerated tissue within and between groups
 (p>0.05). The mean results of groups at the 12th week
 were worse than results at the 4th week; however,
 the difference was statistically significant for only the
 sham group (group 1) and the combined therapy
 group (group 4) (p=0.007 and p=0.014, respectively).
 Conclusion
 HAF alone, HAM alone, and combined administration
 of both biomaterials neither affected chondral defect
 healing nor had any differences between each
 other. Nevertheless, we believe that some early
 regeneration due to an intrinsic repair mechanism is
 possible in immature rabbits as this study showed
 better results at 4th week than those at 12th week,
 although they are prone to degenerative processes in
 long-term follow-up. We suggest that a larger sample
 size in an experimental study would probably display
 a statistically significant difference when investigating
 effects of HAF, HAM, or both.
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