CAJ | 학술논문

Objective:To investigate the effect of osteoporosis and intervertebral disc degeneration on the endplate cartilage injury in rats.Methods:A total of48 femaleSpragueDawley rats(3 months) were randomly divided intoGroupsA,B,C andD with12 rats in each group.Osteoporosis and intervertebral disc degeneration composite model, simple degeneration model and simple osteoporosis model were prepared inGroupsA,B andC respectively.After modeling, four rats of each group at12th,18th and24th week were sacrificed.Intervertebral height of cervical vertebra C6/C7 was measured.Micro-CT was used to image the endplate of cephalic and caudal cartilage atC6/C7 intervertebral disc.Abraded area rate ofC6 caudal andC7 cephalic cartilage endplate was calculated, and thenC6/C7 intervertebral disc was routinely embedded and sectioned, stained with safraninO to observe histological changes microscopically.Results:At12,18 and 24 weeks, intervertebral disc height ofC6/C7 were(0.58±0.09) mm,(0.53±0.04) mm and(0.04±0.06) mm inGroupA rats,(0.55±0.05) mm,(0.52±0.07) mm and(0.07±0.05) mm inGroupB rats.At24th week, intervertebral disc height ofGroupA rats was significantly lower than that ofGroupB rats (P<0.05); intervertebral disc height ofGroupsA andB rats at each time point were significantly lower than that ofGroupsC andD(P<0.05).There was no significantly statistical difference of intervertebral disc height betweenGroupsC andD(P>0.05).At12 and18 weeks, the abraded rate ofC6 caudal andC7 cephalic cartilage endplate inGroupA rats were significantly higher than that inGroupsB,C andD rats(P<0.05); the abraded rate inGroupB was significantly higher than that inGroupsC andD(P>0.05).Microscopic observation ofCT showed that ventral defects inC6 caudal orC7 cephalic cartilage endplate inGroupsA andB appeared after12 weeks of modeling;obvious cracks were found in front of theC6 andC7 vertebral body, and cartilage defect shown the trend of "repairing" at18 and24 weeks after modeling.Conclusions:Intervertebral disc degeneration and osteoporosis can cause damage to the cartilage endplate.Co-existence of these two factors can induce more serious damage to the endplate, which has possitive correlation with intervertebral disc degeneration.Osteoporosis plays a certain role in intervertebral disc degeneration process, and accelerates the degeneration of intervertebral disc in a specific time window.