Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery
Original ArticleGrowth Factor Delivery to a Cartilage-Cartilage Interface Using Platelet-Rich Concentrates on a Hyaluronic Acid Scaffold
Section snippets
Preparation of the Cartilage Plugs
The explant model used in this study has been used previously to evaluate cartilage repair, scaffold integration, and cartilage interface development in vitro.31 Three operators performed the specimen preparations. In total, 24 full-thickness osteochondral plugs were harvested from a bovine femoral condyle and trochlea in a sterile manner using a 7-mm diameter osteochondral graft harvester (single-use OATS set 7 mm; Arthrex, Naples, FL). The diameter of these plugs was 7 mm and thickness was
Blood Collection
The number of platelets within the L-PRP was 188.4 × 104cells/μL, representing a 10-fold increase from the original blood specimens collected. The average number of white blood cells was 15.5 × 103cells/ μL, which was a 3.2-fold increase from the original blood specimens collected. The hematocrit value was 36, which was a 0.12-fold decrease from the original blood specimen collected. We did not evaluate changes in cellular concentrations in L-PRF, given its gelatinous form.
Mechanical Strength of the Interface
Following 42 days in
Discussion
The 2 principal findings of our study are that L-PRF elicited the greatest degree of cellularity, collagen production, whereas L-PRP facilitated the greatest amount of sGAG production. There was no superiority observed in biomechanical strength between the platelet concentrates used in this study.
An important finding was that L-PRF had the greatest number of cells. The significant increase in the L-PRF group may be artificially elevated because of the presence of leukocytes in the preparation
Conclusions
Delivery of leukocyte-rich platelet concentrates in conjunction with a HA scaffold may allow for improvements in cartilage healing through different pathways. L-PRF was not superior to L-PRP in its biomechanical strength, suggesting that both treatments may be effective in improving biomechanical strength of healing cartilage through different pathways.
Acknowledgments
We thank Lilly Ying, B.S., for the immunohistochemical preparations. This study was supported by the Russell Warren Chair in Tissue Engineering.
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Ashley Titan and Michael Schär contributed equally to this work.
The authors report no conflicts of interest in the authorship and publication of this article. Full ICMJE author disclosure forms are available for this article online, as supplementary material.