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Abstract
Objectives: To observe the age-related changes of sulfated glycosaminoglycan (sGAG) content of hip joint cartilage of elderly people based on Equilibrium Partitioning of an Ionic Contrast Agent (EPIC) micro-CT.
Methods: Seventy human hip cartilage–bone samples were collected from hip-fracture patients (ages 51–96) and divided into five groups (10 years in an age group). They were first immersed in 20% concentration of the contrast agent Meglumine Diatrizoate (MD) for 6 h at 37 °C, and then scanned by micro-CT. Following scanning, samples were stained for sGAG with toluidine blue. The X-ray attenuation and sGAG optical density were calculated by image processing. The correlation between X-ray attenuation and sGAG optical density was then analyzed.
Results: The X-ray mean attenuation of the cartilage increased by 18.81% from the 50–80 age groups (p < 0.01), but decreased by 7.15% in the 90 age group compared to the 80 age group. The X-ray mean attenuation of the superficial layer and middle layer increased by 31.60 % and 44.68% from the 50–80 age groups, respectively (p < 0.01), but reduced by 4.67% and 6.05% separately in the 90 age group. However, the deep layer showed no significant change with aging. The sGAG optical density showed a linear correlation (r = −0.91, p < 0.01) with the X-ray attenuation.
Conclusion: The sGAG content of hip joint cartilage varied with aging in elderly people. The changes in superficial layer and middle layer were more evident than deep layer.
Declaration of interest
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31170896), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-11-0772) and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (2011AA02A102).
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.