Intra-articular injection of a nutritive mixture solution protects articular cartilage from osteoarthritic progression induced by anterior cruciate ligament transection in mature rabbits: a randomized controlled trial

Table 2 Histopathologic evaluation of H&E stained cartilage by the Mankin grading method

Items	Normal (n = 7)	NMS (n = 7)	NS (n = 11)	P*
Medial tibial plateau
Structure	0.57 (0.30)^a	2.14 (0.46)^a	5.27 (0.60)^b	0.000
Cell in tangential zone	0.29 (0.18)^a	0.71 (0.18)^a	1.50 (0.15)^b	0.000
Cell in transitional and radial zone	1.00 (0.69)^a	2.57 (0.43)^a	6.05 (0.75)^b	0.000
Pannus formation	0.00 (0.00)^a	0.29 (0.18)^a	1.18 (0.30)^b	0.005
Sum of scores	1.86 (1.12)^a	5.71 (0.84)^b	14.00 (0.75)^c	0.000
Medial femoral condyle
Structure	0.57 (0.30)^a	1.29 (0.47)^ab	2.50 (0.54)^b	0.031
Cell in tangential zone	0.29 (0.18)^a	0.43 (0.20)^ab	0.95 (0.11)^b	0.010
Cell in transitional and radial zone	1.00 (0.69)^a	2.29 (0.68)^a	5.36 (0.78)^b	0.001
Pannus formation	0.00 (0.00)	0.43 (0.20)	0.73 (0.24)	0.062
Sum of scores	1.86 (1.12)^a	4.43 (1.17)^a	9.55 (1.30)^b	0.001

Data represent the means (standard error) for each group. As the severity of cartilage lesions increases, so does the score obtained using the Mankin grading method. The Normal group includes normal articular cartilage group that did not undergo any surgery or treatment. The nutritive mixture solution (NMS) group received NMS after surgery. The normal saline (NS) group received NS after surgery. *Differences among the three groups were considered to be statistically significant when the P value was under 0.05 by one-way analysis of variance and Tukey HSD test, or Kruskal-Wallis test, depending on normality of data. ^a,b,cData with different letters in the three groups are statistically significantly different.

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