Subchondral Bone Sclerosis Increases In Both Trabecular Bone And Subchondral Plate In Human Knee Osteoarthritis : Relationship With Histology

Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of a whole joint. Yet most of the diagnostic methods are focused mainly on cartilage degeneration and erosion. However, there is increasing evidence that the subchondral bone significantly contributes to the pathogenesis of OA. It has even been suggested that first tissue-level changes in OA occur in the subchondral bone before any signs of degeneration in the overlying articular cartilage. Micro-computed tomography (μCT) is a technique enabling 3D characterization of the subchondral bone morphology. However, there is no data of the 3D morphology and densitometric parameters of human trabecular bone and subchondral plate in relation to the actual histological degeneration of the overlaying cartilage. Therefore, the aim of this study was to characterize morphological changes in human tibial trabecular bone and subchondral plate as a function of histological progression of OA.