Author(s)

Henrique Ribeiro Rodrigues-Neto¹, Edilson Ferreira Andrade-Junior¹, Denilson Jose Silva Feitosa-Junior², André Lopes Valente², Thiago Cesar Xavier², Bianca Caroline do Nascimento Alho², Renan Kleber Costa Teixeira², Fabio Vidal Moriya^1,2, Rui Sérgio Monteiro de Barros^1,2*

¹Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Porto Dias Hospital, Belém, Brazil.
²Experimental Surgery Laboratory, Pará State University, Belém, Brazil.

Background: Osteoarthritis is a slowly progressive and debilitating disease with high prevalence in adult population. Knee is one of the joints most affected by this disorder. There are several models for animals’ osteoarthritis induction, however it is not identified any paper that compares these techniques. The present study was aimed to define the most appropriate model for rats osteoarthritis induction. Material and Methods: 40 Wistar rats were distributed into 4 groups of 10 animals each: normality group (NG); meniscectomy group (MG); quinolone group (QG) and iodoacetate group (IG). Radiographic images of the rat’s knees were analyzed as well as the amount of chondrocytes in the epiphyseal and articular cartilage. Results: In the radiographic analysis, there was a low correlation between the raters. Regarding the amount of chondrocytes in the epiphyseal cartilage, it was noticed that the IG and QG groups had fewer chondrocytes than NG, in contrast to MG that reported similar results to normality (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference between IG and QG groups (p > 0.05). Regarding the amount of chondrocytes in articular cartilage, it was noticed that the IG group showed fewer chondrocytes than NG (p < 0.01), in contrast to the QG and MG groups that showed similar results to normality (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference between QG and MG groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Intraarticular injection of iodoacetate in rats is the model with greatest effect on reduction of chondrocytes amount.

Osteoarthritis, Knee Joint, Experimental Arthritis, Animal Disease Models, Rats

Rodrigues-Neto, H. , Andrade-Junior, E. , Feitosa-Junior, D. , Valente, A. , Xavier, T. , Alho, B. , Teixeira, R. , Moriya, F. and de Barros, R. (2016) Comparison of Three Experimental Models for Rat Osteoarthritis Induction. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 4, 62-69. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2016.412010.