Laser ablation machined sections permit correlative studies of HDMP by X-ray microtomography, optical and scanning electron microscopy
Abstract: Purpose: Cracks in bone and articular calcified cartilage (ACC) of the subchondral plate heal by intercalation of a highly mineralised infill material which disappears with demineralisation. This material may also extruded into hyaline articular cartilage (HAC) as High Density Mineralised Protrusions (HDMPs), which may fragment and act as a cutting and grinding agent, damaging HAC from within. We wish to know more about the structure and composition of HDMPs. We have prepared very thin sections from the front face of bone blocks embedded in PMMA - which had previously been studied by backscattered electron scanning electron microscopy (BSE-SEM) and x-ray microtomography (XMT) - by the new technique of laser-ablation machining and wanted to know if this method could be applied to this rather intractable problem....