Riggin Corinne N, Sarver Joseph J, Freedman Benjamin R, Thomas Stephen J, Soslowsky Louis J
J Biomech Eng. 2014 Feb;136(2):021029. doi: 10.1115/1.4026285.
Achilles tendon ruptures are traumatic injuries, and techniques for assessing repair outcomes rely on patient-based measures of pain and function, which do not directly assess tendon healing. Consequently, there is a need for a quantitative, in vivo measure of tendon properties. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to validate ultrasound imaging for evaluating collagen organization in tendons. In this study, we compared our novel, high-frequency ultrasound (HFUS) imaging and analysis method to a standard measure of collagen organization, crossed polarizer (CP) imaging. Eighteen mouse Achilles tendons were harvested and placed into a testing fixture where HFUS and CP imaging could be performed simultaneously in a controlled loading environment. Two experiments were conducted: (1) effect of loading on collagen alignment and (2) effect of an excisional injury on collagen alignment. As expected, it was found that both the HFUS and CP methods could reliably detect an increase in alignment with increasing load, as well as a decrease in alignment with injury. This HFUS method demonstrates that structural measures of collagen organization in tendon can be determined through ultrasound imaging. This experiment also provides a mechanistic evaluation of tissue structure that could potentially be used to develop a targeted approach to aid in rehabilitation or monitor return to activity after tendon injury.
跟腱断裂是创伤性损伤，评估修复效果的技术依赖于基于患者的疼痛和功能测量，而这些并不能直接评估肌腱愈合情况。因此，需要一种定量的、体内测量肌腱特性的方法。所以，本研究的目的是验证超声成像在评估肌腱中胶原组织方面的作用。在本研究中，我们将我们新颖的高频超声（HFUS）成像及分析方法与胶原组织的标准测量方法——交叉偏振器（CP）成像进行了比较。采集了18只小鼠的跟腱，并将其放入一个测试装置中，在可控的加载环境下能够同时进行HFUS和CP成像。进行了两个实验：（1）加载对胶原排列的影响和（2）切除性损伤对胶原排列的影响。正如预期的那样，发现HFUS和CP方法都能可靠地检测到随着负荷增加排列增加，以及随着损伤排列减少。这种HFUS方法表明，可以通过超声成像确定肌腱中胶原组织的结构测量。该实验还提供了对组织结构的机制性评估，这可能潜在地用于开发一种有针对性的方法，以帮助肌腱损伤后的康复或监测恢复活动情况。
