{"doi":"10.1007/s10439-024-03660-4","title":"Morphological and Mechanical Property Differences in Trapeziometacarpal Ligaments of Healthy and Osteoarthritic Female Joints","abstract":"PURPOSE: To identify changes in morphological and mechanical properties in the volar ligament complex (VLC), dorsoradial ligaments (DRL), and posterior oblique ligaments (POL) in healthy and osteoarthritic female trapeziometacarpal (TMC) joints. METHODS: Twenty-four fresh-frozen female cadaveric TMCs were separated into (1) younger healthy/early-stage osteoarthritic, (2) elder healthy/early-stage osteoarthritic, and (3) advanced-stage osteoarthritic groups based on age and Eaton-Littler grading. Stress relaxation and load-to-failure testing were performed to characterize mechanical tensile properties. Light imaging and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were performed to further assess enthesis structural integrity. RESULTS: The VLC in advanced-stage osteoarthritic TMCs had attenuated mechanical properties in stress relaxation experiments compared to the elder healthy/early-stage osteoarthritic specimens: Young's modulus at 20% strain (P = 0.044), instantaneous (P = 0.023), relaxed (P = 0.017) moduli. VLCs in advanced-stage osteoarthritic TMCs also had significantly lower properties in the load-to-failure experiments compared to the younger healthy/early-stage osteoarthritic specimens: stiffness (P = 0.048), ultimate load (P = 0.017), toughness (P = 0.003). Light and SEM/EDS imaging revealed partial detachment and loss of enthesis mineral gradient at VLC metacarpal insertion in advanced-stage osteoarthritic specimens. There were no mechanical or structural changes in the DRL and POL between experiment groups. CONCLUSION: VLC morphological and mechanical properties deteriorate across progressively severe osteoarthritis classifications while the DRL and POL remain unchanged. The attenuated mechanical properties of VLCs in advanced-stage osteoarthritic TMCs can be explained by ligament degradation as evidenced by partial detachment and loss of mineral gradient at the metacarpal insertion.","journal":"Annals of Biomedical Engineering","year":2024,"id":472652,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8177,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":786504,"name":"Daniel Gordon","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1308122,"name":"Alexander M. Chiaramonti","orcid":"0000-0003-2487-7280","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1143084,"name":"Shangping Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-0049-2212","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":657151,"name":"Zhaoxu Meng","orcid":"0000-0002-3250-7696","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1308123,"name":"Dane Daley","orcid":"0000-0002-9620-1311","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":737146,"name":"Elizabeth H. Slate","orcid":"0000-0001-6372-5277","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228508,"name":"Hai Yao","orcid":"0000-0001-5130-5128","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1308124,"name":"Vincent D. Pellegrini","orcid":"0000-0001-7492-0684","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":874955,"name":"Yongren Wu","orcid":"0000-0002-5411-8528","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1308121,"name":"Lizzie Walker","orcid":"0009-0001-9980-6260","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":38,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:05:57.032095Z","pmid":"39645536","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}