Investigation of the effectiveness of intra-articular chitosan application in the treatment of experimentally induced osteoarthritis in rats

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the treatment efficacy of intra-articular chitosan injection on osteoarthritis in rats. Material and Methods: The study material consisted of 30 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats aged 10-12 weeks. The rats were randomly divided into 3 groups. After a 2-week adaptation period, all groups were injected with 3 mg monosodium iodoacetate (MIA) solution in 50 microliters of physiological serum to create OA. 2 weeks were waited for chronic osteoarthritis to form. Intra-articular chitosan was applied to the first group, intra-articular hyaluronic acid (HA) was applied to the second group, and intra-articular isotonic NaCl was applied to the third group. The contralateral knee joint of the rats in each group was accepted as the control group. Clinical and radiological evaluations were made on the relevant knee joints of the animals in all groups before sodium iodoacetate injection, before chitosan injection, and on the 7th and 14th days after injection. Results: No significant superiority was observed between the groups in the evaluations of leg posture scoring, subchondral bone sclerosis scoring, and osteophyte scoring. Fourteen days after the intra-articular injection, euthanasia was performed. Following euthanasia, the joints of all rats in each group were dissected and evaluated for macroscopic findings, and it was observed that the results obtained from the other scoring methods were also applicable to the macroscopic evaluation. Cocnlusion: It was concluded that intra-articular chitosan and HA applications can be used separately as an effective treatment in rats with OA formation.