Radiographic assessment of the femorotibial joint of the CCLT rabbit experimental model of osteoarthritis

BMC Medical Imaging

Research Article

Eric P Vignon¹  Pierre A Maitre²  Olivier Roualdes²  Fabien Arnault²  Marie-Eve Duclos²  Didier J Fau²  Caroline B Boulocher²  Thierry W Roger²  Rodrigo Da Rocha Cararo²  Eric R Viguier²  Fabien Collard² 

[1] Université de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, UPSP 2007.03.135 RTI2B, Lyon, France;Hospices Civils Lyon Sud, Lyon, France;Université de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, UPSP 2007.03.135 RTI2B, Lyon, France;École Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon (ENVL), membre de l'université de Lyon, Lyon, France;

关键词: Joint Space Narrowing;    Medial Compartment;    Medial Femoral Condyle;    Joint Space Width;    Meniscal Lesion;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2342-10-3

 received in 2009-01-06, accepted in 2010-01-20,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe purposes of the study were to determine the relevance and validity of in vivo non-invasive radiographic assessment of the CCLT (Cranial Cruciate Ligament Transection) rabbit model of osteoarthritis (OA) and to estimate the pertinence, reliability and reproducibility of a radiographic OA (ROA) grading scale and associated radiographic atlas.MethodsIn vivo non-invasive extended non weight-bearing radiography of the rabbit femorotibial joint was standardized. Two hundred and fifty radiographs from control and CCLT rabbits up to five months after surgery were reviewed by three readers. They subsequently constructed an original semi-quantitative grading scale as well as an illustrative atlas of individual ROA feature for the medial compartment. To measure agreements, five readers independently scored the same radiographic sample using this atlas and three of them performed a second reading. To evaluate the pertinence of the ROA grading scale, ROA results were compared with gross examination in forty operated and ten control rabbits.ResultsRadiographic osteophytes of medial femoral condyles and medial tibial condyles were scored on a four point scale and dichotomously for osteophytes of medial fabella. Medial joint space width was scored as normal, reduced or absent. Each ROA features was well correlated with gross examination (p < 0.001). ICCs of each ROA features demonstrated excellent agreement between readers and within reading. Global ROA score gave the highest ICCs value for between (ICC 0.93; CI 0.90-0.96) and within (ICC ranged from 0.94 to 0.96) observer agreements. Among all individual ROA features, medial joint space width scoring gave the highest overall reliability and reproducibility and was correlated with both meniscal and cartilage macroscopic lesions (rs = 0.68 and rs = 0.58, p < 0.001 respectively). Radiographic osteophytes of the medial femoral condyle gave the lowest agreements while being well correlated with the macroscopic osteophytes (rs = 0.64, p < 0.001).ConclusionNon-invasive in vivo radiography of the rabbit femorotibial joint is feasible, relevant and allows a reproducible grading of experimentally induced OA lesion. The radiographic grading scale and atlas presented could be used as a template for in vivo non invasive grading of ROA in preclinical studies and could allow future comparisons between studies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Boulocher et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.