Fig 6.

Comparison of MRI (A and B) with histological findings (C). The medial condyle region of the ACLR knee joint of animal #8955 showed in the sagittal MRI-scan (A) through the medial compartment no salience but the coronal MRI-scan (B) showed a signal irregularity (1) in the cartilage layer and was therefore rated as pathologically changed. The scale bars for A and B were determined with the program RadiAnt DICOM viewer (see caption Fig 1). The histological safranin-o staining (C) showed a severe degeneration (Little-score: 19.25 points) with a fissure (1) reaching to the subchondral lamella and severe erosion (2) of the cartilage. Reduced safranin-o staining of the remaining cartilage tissue indicated a reduced GAG content and a severe loss of chondrocytes could be seen. The histological and MRI results did match.