Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Osteoarthritis affects millions of people of different age groups around the world.
With very few treatment options and the highly restricted capacity of cartilage to
repair, new treatment options are needed. The objective of this thesis was to develop
a repeatable cartilage testing protocol, which could be used to test cartilage properties
and determine if crosslinking can be used as a potential treatment for osteoarthritis.
Previous studies have shown CASPc can be used as a photo-sensitizer to obtain
collagen crosslinking through a secondary process. The ability to perform cartilage
crosslinking by light-activation, which could be done arthroscopically is especially
attractive as this would allow the surgery to be minimally invasive.
The indentation protocol developed for a stress-relaxation test was able to achieve
95% repeatability, meaning the error in determining cartilage properties stayed within
5% of the average for tests performed at different times. Results of photo-chemical
crosslinking demonstrated no change in cartilage stiffness when compared with control
specimens. The spherical indenter chosen to indent the cartilage was suspected to
apply less strain on cartilage as a result of its profile, which only compressed the
cartilage instead of stretching its surface. The stiffness of CASPc control specimen
was observed to be increasing when compared with no-CASPc control, as a result of
added viscosity of CASPc solution. This elevated stiffness was observed to diminish
over time due to the diffusion of CASPc from cartilage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/15092 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Chandwadkar, Shaunak A. |
| Contributors | Wagner, Diane S., Jones, Alan S., Ryu, Jong E |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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