The Role of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells in the Management of Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common chronic, inflammatory, and degenerative diseases affecting the synovial joints, the hip, and the knee. OA is commonly managed clinically by treating pain with anti-inflammatory medicines using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) or analgesics. In severe OA patients, invasive knee replacement surgery is the last option. Treatment of OA using mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) has been widely explored due to their anti-inflammatory properties and chondrogenic differentiation potential. In this chapter, we comprehensively discuss in detail the in vitro OA potency development, OA preclinical studies, and clinical trials conducted using MSCs.

Biomarker Signatures of Quality for Engineering Nasal Chondrocyte-Derived Cartilage

“…We investigated whether predictive gene expression markers can be used to estimate the capacity of the cells to form engineered cartilage. The final cartilage quality is currently assessed using the MBS, a semi-quantitative score of safranin O-stained histological images (Grogan et al, 2006;Lehoczky et al, 2019), and via GAG quantification (Thej and Kumar Gupta, 2019).…”

Mesenchymal stromal cells for the treatment of osteoarthritis of knee joint: context and perspective

“…Most commonly, the volume of cartilage in the knee joint, cartilage thickness which is measured at different points of the joint compartment, whole-organ magnetic resonance imaging score (WORMS), T2 relaxation time mapping, Magnetic Resonance Observation of Cartilage Repair Tissue (MOCART) scoring and MRI Osteoarthritis Knee Score (MOAKS) score are measured using MRI. More recently, MRI contrast chemical elements such as gadolinium are being used in order to improve the quality of the MRI image (dGEMRIC) (18). From existing literature, it seems that the sensitivity of T2 time mapping and WORMS are higher and these qualitative measurements are used to measure subtle changes in collagen fibril orientation and hydration of articular cartilage.…”