Sex does not influence tibiofemoral cartilage response to running in healthy adults

This study investigated the influence of sex on tibiofemoral cartilage response to running. Healthy adults completed MR imaging of their right knee immediately before and after 15-minutes of treadmill running at a self-selected moderate pace. Pixelwise cartilage thickness maps were created from the segmentations. Each map was interpolated to the same physical space, then smoothed using a Gaussian kernel filter. Pixelwise F-statistics investigating the main effects of Sex and Running, as well as the interaction effect of Sex#Running were completed. Significant clusters of contiguous pixels were identified for the main effects of Sex and Running; there was no interaction effect. This work suggests that while women tend to have thinner tibiofemoral cartilage, sex does not influence how that cartilage responds to external load.