Table 1.
Average Wakitani Scores at Each Week of the Experiment Scored by 3 Different Investigators.
| Group | Interval until Animals were Euthanized (Wks.) | No. of Specimens | Wakitani Score |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cell Morphology (Maximum 4) | Matrix-Staining (max 3) | Surface Regular (Maximum 3) | Thickness of Cartilage (Maximum 2) | Integration of Donor with Adjacent Host Cartilage (Maximum 2) | Total (Maximum 14) | |||
| Control | 2 | 5 | 3.7 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 1.7 | 1.1 | 11.7 |
| 4 | 5 | 3.5 | 2.7 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 10.9 | |
| 12 | 5 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 1.6 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 7.9 | |
| Transplantation | 2 | 5 | 3.1 | 2.2 | 1.4* | 1.5 | 0.9 | 9.2* |
| 4 | 5 | 2.6 | 2.2 | 1.2* | 1.0 | 0.4* | 7.4* | |
| 12 | 5 | 1.4 | 1.6* | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.2* | 4.7* | |
*
P < 0.05 (n = 5, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests).