Proximal fibular osteotomy alleviates medial compartment knee osteoarthritis in a mouse model

The purpose of this study was to establish a mouse model of proximal fibular osteotomy (PFO), and to determine if PFO could delay degeneration of the medial compartment of the knee joint in a mouse model. An animal model of destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) was used to induce post-traumatic knee osteoarthritis (OA). PFO was performed to examine the effectiveness of PFO on protection against medial compartment knee OA. Micro-CT was used to observe osteosclerosis development in the subchondral bone, and Safranin O-fast green staining was used to evaluate the progression of articular cartilage destruction. The condylar-plateau angle (CPA) and anatomical femorotibial angle (aFTA) were measured to determine whether knee alignment was changed after PFO. PFO treatment could decrease osteophyte formation and osteosclerosis development in the subchondral bone, as observed by micro-CT. The value of the ratio of trabecular bone volume to total volume (BV/TV) of DMM+PFO group was lower than that of DMM group. PFO also inhibited the progression of articular cartilage destruction. DMM + PFO group displayed decreased maximal and summed OA scores, as compared with DMM group. Moreover, the change of knee alignment was reduced by PFO, which might be the mechanism of PFO alleviating medial compartment knee OA. Our results indicated that PFO could alleviate medial compartment knee OA in a mouse model.