Research Information System
Joint diseases and related surgery, vol.34, no.1, pp.166-175, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
Objectives: T his s tudy a ims t o e valuate t he e fficacy o f high-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid (HMWHA) and lactoferrin (LF) injections on temporomandibular joint (TMJ) cartilage and subchondral bone in mono-iodoacetate (MIA)-induced temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis model in rats. Materials and methods: In this in vivo s tudy, a t otal o f 24 rats were divided into three groups as follows: saline group (Group 1), HMWHA group (Group 2), and LF group (Group 3) including eight rats in each group. The intra-articular injections were administered once a week for three weeks after osteoarthritis was induced. All animals were euthanized 28 days after induction of osteoarthritis, and TMJs were harvested for histomorphometric, immunohistochemical, and micro-computed tomography (CT) analysis. Results: There was no significant difference between the HMWHA and LF groups in terms of the histomorphometric and immunohistochemical analysis results (p>0.05). According to the micro-CT analysis, the LF group had the highest mean bone volume fraction (74.9±0.5) and trabecular thickness (0.122±0.002), while the saline group had the lowest mean values (55.0±0.3 and 0.071±0.002, respectively) (p<0.001). There was no significant difference between the HMWHA and LF groups according to the micro-CT analysis (p>0.05). Both groups had better healing effects than the saline group in all analyses. Conclusion: Lactoferrin has a healing effect at least as much as HMWHA in MIA-induced TMJ osteoarthritis. We suggest that LF may be evaluated in future clinical studies as a promising agent in the treatment of osteoarthritis.