Prevalence of articular cartilage degeneration in the ankle and knee joints of human organ donors.

The prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) is higher in some joints than in others. Fibrillation and full-thickness cartilage defects in the knee have been considered to be evidence of developing OA (pre-OA). While similar changes have been reported in the ankle (talocrural joint), the frequency of these changes is much higher than expected if the degeneration represents pre-OA. These observations suggest that in the ankle degenerative changes do not proceed to OA. The current study was to determine the prevalence of articular cartilage degeneration in ankles in a population of 470 bone donors with no history of joint disease. Knees from 50 donors were also available. Our data suggest that degeneration in the ankle cartilage does not appear to be a normal part of aging, was more frequent in men than women, increased with age, and occurred most often in both limbs with the same severity. In those donors with degeneration in the ankle, the knee also showed degenerative changes with an equal or higher grade. These data suggest that factors (such as altered mechanics) responsible for degeneration in one limb also cause changes in the contralateral limb and that factors affecting the ankle joints also appear to influence the knee joints.