Determination of contact pressures in the canine stifle joint

Biological triggers during cell development can determine a cell's ultimate phenotype. Understanding these triggers can facilitate engineering of tissues for growth and repair of damaged tissue. Pressure affects chondrocyte proliferation and has been used in cell culture experiments to study cell alignment. Determining pressure in healthy joints is imperative to the development of a cartilage tissue covered scaffold system for joint resurfacing. Pressure measurements will help define physiologic pressures leading to cartilage growth and regeneration. Joint overload can be more easily determined if healthy joint loads and pressures are known. Contact pressures have previously been determined in artificial joints using pressure sensitive films. In this study pressures and loads acting on a canine joint (to be used as a model for scaffold development) were determined simultaneously with pressure sensitive film, strain gauges on the bone and from strain gauged Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) scaffolds. The purpose of this study was to determine if strains collected from gauged scaffolds and calibrated using pressure sensitive film measurements could be used to infer joint pressures in vivo. In addition, the effect of scaffold placement on joint pressure was measured.