Abstract
The common practice of freezing meniscal allograft tissue is limited due to the formation of damaging ice crystals. Vitrification, which eliminates the formation of damaging ice crystals, may allow the mechanical properties of meniscal allograft tissue to be maintained during storage and long-term preservation. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the differences between fresh, frozen, and vitrified porcine lateral menisci examining compressive mechanical properties in the axial direction. Unconfined compressive stress-relaxation testing was conducted to quantify the mechanical properties of fresh, frozen and vitrified porcine lateral menisci. The compressive mechanical properties investigated were peak and equilibrium stress, secant, instantaneous and equilibrium modulus, percent stress-relaxation, and relaxation time constants from three-term Prony series. Frozen menisci exhibited inferior compressive mechanical properties in comparison with fresh menisci (significant differences in peak and equilibrium stress, and secant, instantaneous and equilibrium modulus) and vitrified menisci (significant differences in peak stress, and secant and instantaneous modulus). Interestingly, fresh and vitrified menisci exhibited comparable compressive mechanical properties (stress, modulus and relaxation parameters). These findings are significant because (1) vitrification was successful in maintaining mechanical properties at values similar to fresh menisci, (2) compressive mechanical properties of fresh menisci were characterized providing a baseline for future research, and (3) freezing affected mechanical properties confirming that freezing should be used with caution in future investigations of meniscal mechanical properties. Vitrification was superior to freezing for preserving compressive mechanical properties of menisci which is an important advance for vitrification as a preservation option for meniscal allograft transplantation.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Edmonton Orthopaedic Research Committee (NMJ) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (GMT: 04560).
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JS, LW, NMJ, SA and GMT contributed to the conception and design of the study, JS, KW, and LL contributed to the acquisition of data, all authors contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data, JS and GMT contributed to drafting the article, and all authors contributed to reviewing, revising and approving the article.
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Dr. N.M. Jomha is a co-inventor on US and Canadian patents for articular cartilage preservation: Jomha NM, McGann LE, Elliott JAW, Law G, Forbes F, Torgabeh AA, Maghdoori B, Weiss A, University of Alberta (2014) “Cryopreservation of articular cartilage”. US Patent 8,758,988; Canada 2,788,202.
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Sun, J., Westover, L., Wu, K. et al. Compressive mechanical properties of vitrified porcine menisci are superior to frozen and similar to fresh porcine menisci. Cell Tissue Bank 24, 737–745 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-022-10065-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-022-10065-x