Method to determine collagen density distributions in fibrous tissues.

We present a method for the measurement of hydroxyproline density distributions, as an estimate for collagen density distributions, in fibrous tissues such as ligaments and tendons. To evaluate this method, a single flexor tendon of a human hand was divided into seven tissue locations. Triplicate determinations of the dry weight tissue mass, volume, and hydroxyproline mass were made at each location: two samples were analyzed at the same time (a and b) and one was analyzed later (c). The intralocation variation is an estimate for the measurement error variance, which indicates both the precision (a compared with b) and the repeatability (b compared with c) of the technique for determination of volume, dry weight tissue mass, hydroxyproline concentration, and hydroxyproline density. The precision was about 5% for all variables, and the repeatability ranged from 1.5-4.3%. In comparison with the interlocation variations, the error variances were small, except for collagen concentration. This indicates that despite the measurement errors, differences in hydroxyproline density can be detected within fibrous tissues with the proposed method. The use of only a single tendon is adequate to evaluate the measurement error of the method, but more tendons should be measured to generalize the absolute values of the variables.