The Osteoarthritis Natural Progress and Changes in Intraosseous Pressure of the Guinea Pig Model in Different Degeneration Stages

OBJECTIVE: Articular cartilage and subchondral bone changes during the pathological progress of knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a key event marking the development of the disease. The age varying alteration patterns within entire osteochondral unit remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to find a reasonable age range of the Dunkin–Hartley guinea pig model for the studying of KOA pathological process, and to investigate Intraosseous pressure (IOP) in the process during different degeneration stages of KOA. METHODS: Male Dunkin–Hartley guinea pigs were selected and divided into groups of 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months old by age, 10 in each group. All knees underwent imaging examination including X‐ray, Micro‐CT and MRI. Observed the imaging findings with the use of Kellgren–Lawrence (K‐L) classification and knee osteoarthritis MRI scores. Measured the IOP of distal femur (DF) and proximal tibia (PT) in each group, and observed the differences of bilateral tibiofemoral articular cartilage in histological and immunohistochemistry, staining results were evaluated by using Mankin's score. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t‐tests were used to compare the differences indicators between groups. RESULTS: With the increase of age, changes in X‐ray, Micro‐CT and MRI imaging findings and pathological staining results of articular cartilage in all stages were consistent with the changing of degenerative KOA process. The IOP of DF and PT increased gradually with age, and reached its peak in 12‐month age group, and then gradually decreased, there was a statistically significant difference of IOP between each group. The IOP of DF was slightly higher than that of PT, but the difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Dunkin–Hartley guinea pigs can be used as an animal model to study different pathological stages of KOA. There might be a correlation between the changes of IOP and the pathological progress of articular cartilage and subchondral bone in DF and PT.