Current Rheumatology Reviews - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009

Injured articular cartilage has a limited capacity for self-repair. This feature is greatly exacerbated with aging due to the progressive decrease in physiological capacity and reduced ability to respond to environment stress [1,2]. Injuries usually result in the development of degenerative changes, ultimately leading to osteoarthritis (OA) that affects the articular joints of 15% of the US population [3]. There is an increasing Read More

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis in adults and is projected to increase in prevalence as the population ages. This review summarizes the currently available management strategies for osteoarthritis, the rationale behind their use, and the current data supporting their efficacy. It underscores the need for new and effective therapies for this common and disabling condition.

Cellular-based therapies for cartilage tissue engineering have evolved quite significantly in the past decades. The realization that such an endeavor requires the acquisition of an adequate stem or progenitor cell population, techniques to effectively maintain or induce the desired phenotype and efficient culturing and implantation conditions have led researchers to develop a wide variety of protocols to approach the issue. Origina Read More

Injured cartilage tissue has a limited capacity to heal. There is increasing need for the development of biologically based approaches for cartilage repair. The ultimate aim is to repair the damaged cartilage tissue with new functional tissue using living cells (alone or in combination with suitable scaffolds) that will integrate with the patient's remaining tissue and yield a regenerated functional joint, which could continue to repair it Read More

Frustrated by limited availability of cells that are difficult to sustain in culture, investigators have long sought an alternative to chondrocytes for use in generating cells for cartilage repair. This search has led to a comprehensive evaluation of “mesenchymal stem cells”, non-embryonic stem cells recovered in aspirates of bone marrow and other tissues derived from the mesoderm. MSCs indeed possess an avid propensity for chon Read More

The regeneration of damaged cartilage due to injuries and diseases is a major goal for the future. Cartilage has limited healing capacity. There have been a number of studies shown to induce cartilage regeneration both in vitro and in vivo. Yet we are far from obtaining regenerated cartilage that has the properties similar to the native cartilage. Chondrogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be induced by bi Read More

Cartilaginous tissues, such as articular cartilage and intervertebral disc, are avascular tissues, which rely on transport for cellular nutrition. Comprehensive knowledge of transport properties in such tissues is therefore necessary in the understanding of nutritional supply to cells. Furthermore, poor cellular nutrition in cartilaginous tissues is believed to be a primary source of tissue degeneration, which may result i Read More

Recent advances in biomaterial development and cellular therapy have offered the possibility of exploring exciting new strategies to engineer cartilage tissue. Both natural and synthetic biomaterials have been used to design a suitable environment for cell support and provide the necessary biological cues to guide cellular behavior towards tissue repair. As with all other areas of tissue engineering, the advances in c Read More

SLE is characterized by overproduction of various types of antibodies. Under certain circumstances, antibodies aiming some of the neoepitopes of the complement system can be seen. Neoepitopes are not present in the native proteins, but they appear after the structural change of the complement system. One of these antibodies binds the activated product C3 called iC3b; however, its possible part in the pathogenesis Read More

Behcet's syndrome (BS) is a multisystemic inflammatory disorder characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcers and ophthalmic alterations, but also involving other systems, including joints, blood vessels, nervous, respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Its etiopathogenesis remains unknown, but epidemiologic data suggest an interaction among genetic, immunologic and infectious factors. BS has a worldwide distribution being Read More