J Korean Acad Rehabil Med.  2005 Aug;29(4):406-412.

The Response of the Injured Articular Cartilage of Rabbit Knee after Injection of Autologous Blood

• Kim SA
• Kim EH
• Kim JI
• Jang I
• Lee JS
• Lee YK

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effects of proliferant by injecting blood into the articular cartilage defect. METHOD: The patella of rabbits were dislocated laterally and 2 mm circular and 2 mm depth full-thickness defect was made in the articular cartilage. We injected 0.2 cc autologous blood to the right defect and normal saline to the left one at 1 week after operation for six times with a 1 week interval. After injection for six weeks, the articular cartilage defect were obtained and stained with H-E and S-100.
RESULTS
The surface of the saline-injected group was easily distinguishable from the surrounding articular cartilage. But the blood-injected group had similar appearance to the surrounding cartilage, with the margin of the defect barely discerptible. Strong S-100 stained immune cartilage cells were observed in the blood-injected group.
CONCLUSION
The repairing process of the injured articular cartilage using autologous blood was shown to be much better than that of saline-injected group although the observation period was short and the number of animal was small. So we found that autologous blood effectively repaired osteochondral defects.

Keyword

Articular cartilage; Proliferant; Dextrose; Blood

MeSH Terms

Animals
Cartilage
Cartilage, Articular*
Glucose
Knee*
Patella
Rabbits
Glucose