Dr. Lasun Oladeji, Resident Physician, and team recently published the article titled “Use of a Hyperosmolar Saline Solution to Mitigate Proinflammatory and Degradative Responses of Articular Cartilage and Meniscus for Application to Arthroscopic Surgery” in the journal Arthroscopy.
The study was designed to evaluate differences in proinflammatory and degradative mediator production and extracellular matrix degradation from osteoarthritic knee articular cartilage and meniscus explants treated with either hyperosmolar saline or isotonic saline. The researchers found that treatment of cartilage and meniscus explants with hyperosmolar saline effectively mitigated key proinflammatory mediator production, as well as degradative mediator production and GAG loss from meniscus, with no detrimental effects noted compared to isotonic saline. Results suggest that hyperosmolar saline irrigation fluid may provide a safe alternative to standard isotonic saline irrigation fluid and could mitigate untoward effects associated with inflammatory responses after standard-of-care knee arthroscopy.