Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Majd, Sara Ehsani
• Rizqy, Aditya Iman
• Kaper, Hans J.
• Schmidt, Tannin A.
• Kuijer, Roel
• Sharma, Prashant K.

Titel

An in vitro study of cartilage–meniscus tribology to understand the changes caused by a meniscus implant

Ist Teil von

• Colloids and surfaces, B, Biointerfaces, 2017-07, Vol.155, p.294-303

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• [Display omitted] •Cartilage–meniscus/polycarbonate urethane (PCU) tribology was studied in vitro.•A special loading/low-loading condition was used to mimic the loading during a gait cycle.•Cartilage–biomaterial and cartilage–meniscus interfaces showed similar amount of wear.•The lubrication mechanism changed going from stance to swing on cartilage–PCU interface.•Cartilage–meniscus interface showed similar lubrication mechanism during stance and swing. Active lifestyles increase the risk of meniscal injury. A permanent meniscus implant of polycarbonate urethane (PCU) is a promising treatment to postpone/prevent total knee arthroplasty. Study of the changes in articular cartilage tribology in the presence of PCU is essential in developing the optimum meniscus implant. Therefore, a cartilage–meniscus reciprocating, sliding model was developed in vitro, mimicking the stance and swing phases of the gait cycle. The meniscus was further replaced with PCU and surface-modified PCUs (with C18 chains, mono-functional polydimethylsiloxane groups and mono-functional polytetrafluoroethylene groups) to study the changes. The coefficient of friction (COF) was calculated, and cartilage wear was determined and quantified histologically. The cartilage–meniscus sliding resulted in low COF during both stance and swing (0.01< COF <0.12) and low wear of cartilage (scores <1). The cartilage–PCU sliding, during stance, revealed similar low COFs. But during swing, the COFs were high (average ∼1, maximum 1.6), indicating a breakdown in interstitial fluid pressurization lubrication and non-effective activation of the boundary lubrication. This may lead to wear of cartilage in long term. However, under the tested conditions the wear of cartilage against PCUs was not higher than its wear against meniscus, and the cartilage was occasionally damaged. The COF decreased with increasing the contact pressure (as-per a power equation) up to 1MPa. The changes in the surface modification of PCU did not affect PCU’s tribological performance.