X-ray Elastography of an osteoarthris mouse model

Osteoarticular diseases are the most prevalent chronic pains and long-term disabilities with hundreds of millions of people affected worldwide. The mechanical properties of bone and cartilage play a crucial role in osteoarthritis but for the moment they can only be assessed essentially by invasive techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy or Optical Coherence tomography. Elastography is a non-invasive medical imaging modality that maps the elastic properties and stiffness of soft and mixed tissues. Unfortunately, the elastography techniques employ so far UltraSound or Magnetic Resonnance Imaging which have both weak or no signal for cartilage and bone. This proposal aims at applying a new imaging modality, namely X-ray elastography, to measure elastic properties of bone, cartilage, and menisci in entire mice joints. This imaging experiment will be performed on postmortem extracted knees of a severe osteoarthritis mouse model and control mice knees.