Fig. 5

Representative Safranin O/fast green-stained histologic sections illustrating cartilage lesions. a-h represents histological changes among the groups in the four regions for the middle stage of OA. All DHEA-treated groups exhibited lower severity grades for histological cartilage lesions in the 4 joint compartments compared with placebo-treated groups with the exception that no histological differences for the MTP and MFC compartments were observed between the DHEA 16 w and NS 16 w groups. (a: MFC ACLT+ DHEA, 9w; b: MFC ACLT + NS, 9 w; c: LFC ACLT+ DHEA, 9w; d: LFC ACLT + NS, 9 w; e: MTP ACLT+ DHEA, 9w; f: MTP ACLT + NS, 9 w; g: LTP ACLT+ DHEA, 9w; h: LTP ACLT + NS, 9 w). i-p represents histological changes among the groups in the four regions for the advanced stage of OA (i: MFC ACLT+ DHEA, 16 w; j: MFC ACLT + NS, 16 w; k: LFC ACLT+ DHEA, 16 w; l: LFC ACLT + NS, 16 w; m: MTP ACLT+ DHEA, 16 w; n: MTP ACLT + NS, 16 w; o: LTP ACLT+ DHEA, 16 w; p: LTP ACLT + NS, 16 w). (Original magnification ×200, scale bar 50 μm)