Higher aggrecan 1-F21 epitope concentration in synovial fluid early after anterior cruciate ligament injury is associated with worse knee cartilage quality assessed by gadolinium enhanced magnetic resonance imaging 20 years later

Table 1 Characteristics of the study subjects with dGEMRIC examination at the 20 years follow-up and available acute and/or chronic synovial fluid samples

	^aBoth dGEMRIC and SF samples, n	Time after injury to SF sampling	Age at injury mean (SD)	Men, %	BMI at injury, mean (SD)	BMI 20 years post injury, mean (SD)
Total study group	25	0 days to 7.5 years	24.5 (6.2)	52	23.6 (3.0)	25.3 (3.5)
	Subjects with SF samples, n	Time after injury
Acute samples	20	0–18 days (median 6 days)
Chronic samples	22	0.5–7.5 years (median 4 years)
	4	0.5–1.5 years
	17	1.5–2.5 years
	12	2.5–3.5 years
	11	3.5–4.5 years
	10	4.5–5.5 years
	3	5.5–6.5 years
	1	6.5–7.5 years

^a 25 subjects with any kind of SF-samples (i.e. acute and/or one or more chronic samples): 3 subjects had only acute samples, 5 subjects had only chronic samples and 17 subjects had both acute and chronic samples. Delayed gadolinium enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC) examination: mean = 20.6 years (range = 18 to 23 years) after injury. SF Synovial fluid, SD Standard deviation.

ISSN: 1471-2474