Effects of Oral Hyaluronic Acid Administration in Dogs Following Tibial Tuberosity Advancement Surgery for Cranial Cruciate Ligament Injury

Hyaluronic acid (HA) intraarticular injection is used in the management of osteoarthritis in veterinary medicine. However, HA oral administration is less common given the scarce currently available scientific evidence. This study was aimed at evaluating the effects of oral HA administration on synovial fluid concentrations of several selected biomarkers in dogs with cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) injury operated on using the tibial tuberosity advancement (TTA) technique. Fifty-five dogs were included in this prospective, randomized, double-blind, clinical study; they were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo (group A; n = 25) or HA (group B; n = 30) orally for 10 weeks. Synovial fluid samples were obtained before surgery, and at 10 weeks postoperatively to measure concentrations of HA, haptoglobin, nitric oxide, and paraoxonase-1. After 10 weeks, group HA showed a significant increase in HA concentration (p = 0.0016) and a significant decrease in PON-1 concentration (p = 0.011) compared to baseline. In conclusion, post-op oral HA administration in canine patients with CCL injury leads to improvements in osteoarthritis biomarkers, namely higher synovial fluid HA concentrations and reduced synovial fluid paraoxonase-1 concentrations. These findings support the bioavailability of orally-administered HA and its usefulness in improving biomarkers of osteoarthritis

Anatomical variations in the aortic bifurcation in New Zealand white rabbits on arteriography

The radiologic anatomy of the aortic bifurcation in the rabbit has received little study but it is important as this anatomical area is widely used in atherosclerosis research. Thirty rabbits were used to study the aortic bifurcation and subsequent branching patterns on arteriography. Fifteen different arteries were identified. Mean arterial diameters of 2.88 ± 0.7 and 2.27 ± 0.55 mm were obtained for the aorta and external iliac arteries, respectively. The cranial and middle aspects at the seventh lumbar vertebra (L7) were the most frequent anatomical landmarks (53.3% of the cases) for aortic and common iliac bifurcations, respectively. The caudal aspect of L6 was the most frequent origin (50% of the cases) for the median sacral artery. Deep circumflex iliac arteries originated from common iliac arteries and not the abdominal aorta in the rabbit, showing anatomical asymmetry in 73.3% of the cases. No gender disparity was found in the anatomical location of any of the arteries of the study. Knowledge of normal vascular landmarks for the aortic bifurcation as well as anatomical variations should be helpful to future experimental studies