A self-healing radiopaque hyaluronic acid hydrogel as a new injectable biomaterial for precision medicine in osteoarthritis

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Rationale: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease affecting cartilage, synovium and bone, that is a major cause of pain and disability. Intra-articular injection of hyaluronic acid (HA) derivatives, also known as viscosupplementation (VS), is a common treatment for the symptomatic management of knee OA. Despite its widespread use, the magnitude of the clinical benefit of VS remains controversial, with conflicting results due to methodological differences and possible differences in efficacy between products related to remanence and rheological properties. Methods: Here, to create an effective HA-based treatment, an injectable self-healing HA hydrogel with long-persistent radiopacity is formed by tethering a clinical iodine contrast agent to HA. The labeling conditions are tuned to obtain sufficient X-ray signal without altering the biocompatibility, rheological and injectability properties of the hydrogel. Results: The iodine labeling enabled to monitor not only delivery of the hydrogel but also its retention in mouse knees up to 5 weeks post-administration using synchrotron K-edge subtraction-computed tomography. We further demonstrated that the unique properties of this hydrogel enable creation of a transient HA network in vivo that attenuates OA progression in a mouse model of OA. Moreover, our data showed that the rate of HA-I disappearance appears to predict treatme

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.