Table II.

Associations of immunoreactivities for protease inhibitors and VEGF with osteochondral vascular density and chondropathy

	Group(s)	TIMP-1	TIMP-3	SLPI	PAI-1	VEGF
Vascular density	OA + PM	0.11	0.10	0.10	0.28	0.32*
	OA only	−0.02	0.01	0.00	0.22	0.13
Chondropathy	OA + PM	0.67**	0.79**	0.55**	0.42**	0.66**
	OA only	0.58**	0.79**	0.45**	0.24	0.61**
VEGF	OA + PM	0.62**	0.67**	0.57**	0.39**	–
	OA only	0.55**	0.67**	0.45**	0.25	–

Increased scores for each protease inhibitor and VEGF were associated with higher chondropathy scores. Increased VEGF, but not protease inhibitors, was associated with increased vascular density in the non-calcified cartilage. Increased protease inhibitor expression was associated with greater VEGF expression. Scoring criteria for protease inhibitors and VEGF are given in Table I. Values are Spearman's rank correlation coefficients for all cases (OA + PM), or OA subgroup only (OA). ^*P < 0.05 ^**P < 0.01 – significant values are in bold.