الفهرس 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Joint diseases and injuries are common debilitating conditions of equine in training. Osteochondral defects may arise after detachment of osteochondroitic dissecting flaps, fractured osteochondral fragments or from degenerative joint disease. Spontaneous healing of these defects leads to inadequate fibrocartilagenous repair. This repair tissue does not have the same biochemical composition or mechanical properties of normal articular cartilage and has been shown in many species to degenerate with use. This study investigates the use of sternal cartilage autograft to resurface large osteochondral defects in equine, keeping the donor site morbidity low and determines whether a sternal cartilage autograft would contribute viable hyaline cartilage to restore an osteochondral defect created on the radial facet of the third carpal bone. Results of clinical, radiographic, synovial fluid, histopathologic, histochemical as well as the biochemical evaluation of the present study were compatible with the morphologic observation that osteochondral transplantation of sternal cartilage autograft improved healing of induced full-thickness cartilage defects in the radial facet of the equine third carpal bone during a six months period of study, and concluded that it is possible to obtain hyaline repair of osteochondral lesion by grafting cartilage of non articular origin.