Effect of Intraarticular Ketamine Administration on the Histopathological Changes of Knee Joint in the Rat Model

Postoperative pain management in patients that undergone arthroscopy is one of the most important procedures for their rehabilitation. Analgesic injection intra-articularly can facilitate pain control in such patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of ketamine on articular cartilage in rat model. Design: Experimental study. Animals: Twenty Wistar Rats Procedures- Rats were included in this study and were randomly divided into 4 groups. Ketamine was injected at doses of 0.1 (Group 1), 0.25 (Group 2), 1.0 (Group 3) and 2.5 (Group 4) mg/ml to their right knee intra-articularly. Isotonic saline (NaCl) was injected into their left knee as the control group. A surface scoring system applied to evaluate the superficial zone of the joint histopathologically. Additionally, morphometric values were considered for the evaluation of the cartilage cellular changes. Results showed that in articular cartilage, there was a surface intact till discontinuity in most cases, when compared groups 1 to 4 with the control group. In addition, in the group 4, one of the cases showed a focal fissure on the articular cartilage surface. Morphometric results showed that in all groups injected with ketamine, measured parameters was variable than to the control group. But there was no significant difference between all experimental groups compared with the control group (P>0.05). Conclusion and Clinical Relevance: Although in this study a teeny change was observed in one of the cases, but it seems that ketamine can be applied as an anesthetic representative with very few complications.