Objective To observe the articular cartilage injuries complicated with the rupture of anterior cruciate ligament(ACL)in 21 athletes and 43 non-athletes,and investigate the cause and the pattern of cartilage of knee following the ACL rupture in those patients.Methods The pathologic change,location,degree of cartilage lesion were observed. The relationship between the incidence, occurrent time,degree of cartilage injury and ACL rupture,injured degree of cartilage and the course of ACL rupture were studied.Results The incidence of cartilage injury were 75% in all patients, 66.7% in athletes and 79%in non-athletes. Incidence of cartilage injury in non-athletes was significantly higher than that in athletes (P<0.01).Incidence of serious injury of cartilage in the course more than 1 year was significantly higher than that less than 1 year (P<0.01),but there were no statistical difference between the two groups.Conclusion The incidence of articular cartilage injury following ACL rupture were significantly raised in athletes and non-athletes. The longer the ACL ruptured, the more serious the cartilage injured. Results indicated that articular cartilage injuries in the ACL rupture knee were mainly caused by the instability of knee.

Objective To explore the diagnostic and therapeutic value of arthroscopy for ankle joint sports injury. Methods 52 patients (53 ankles) with ankle sports injury treated by arthroscopy were reviewed retrospectively from December 1992 to December 2001. The modified McGuire Scorting for ankle (1988) was used as efficacy criteria. Results The mean recovery time of daily activities and special sports for the athletes was 10 days and 2.5 months respectively. All of the athletes returned to their previous optimal athletic level except that 1 case recovered slowly due to reinjury. Complications occurred in 3 cases (5 8%). The preoperative score was (60 4?9 1) points and postoperative score (89 0?5 7) points ( t =24 1, P

Objective To study the reasons, patterns of the injury and methods of early reconstruction of the articular cartilage injuries associated with the rupture of anterior cruciate ligament(ACL). Methods The pathologic change, location, degree of articular cartilage lesion were observed in 64 old ACL ruptures and 23 fresh ones by arthroscopy. The relationship between the incidence， duration of the injury, degree of cartilage injury and ACL ruptures, the correlation between the cartilage injury of femoral condyles and meniscus injury were studied. Results The incidence of articular cartilage injury in old ACL rupture group(75％ ) was significantly higher than that in fresh group(26％ )(P

Nitric oxide (NO) plays an important pathophysiological role in osteoarthritis and cartilage metabolism. To determine the relationship between NO and the synthesis of type II collagen in cartilage, we measured levels of type II collagen by ELISA and procollagen (II) mRNA by RT-PCR in cultured lapine chondrocytes that were incubated with some kinds of reagents. 0.2mM sodium nitroprusside (SNP, a NO donor) can release high levels of NO, decreasing type II collagen, suppressing the expression of procollagen (II) mRNA (COL2A1).At the same time, chondrocytes showed a large increase in NO synthesis, a decrease in type II collagen and COL2A1 mRNA in response to 100u/ml IL-1. When 1mg/ml N-nitro-L-arginine methyl easter (NAME, an inhibitor of NO synthase) was mixed with IL-1, NO production was inhibited, the amounts of type II collagen recovered partially and COL2A1 mRNA recovered completely.These data indicate NO can inhibit type II collagen synthesis as IL-1 downstream molecule by suppressing procollagen (II) mRNA.