Figure 4

Histopathological Analysis of Ankle Joint. (A) Normal control animal ankle-joint parts representing articular cartilage (Ac), synovial membrane (Sm), synovial folds (Sm), spongy Bone (Sb), bone marrow cells (Bm), joint cavity (Jc). (B) disease control (DC) animal following treatment C-Ab + LPS showing moderately enlarged synovial membrane (Sm), hyperplastic synovium (Sh), increased synovial vascularity (Sv), inflammation (In), bone erosion (Be), and cartilage erosion (Ce). (C) Treatment of CAIA animal with Ashwashila (ASHW) showed mildly enlarged Sm, Sh and increased Sv. (D) Diseased animals treated with Methotrexate (MTX) showed minimal enlarged Sh, In and increased Sv. (E) Total lesion score measurement indicated increase in inflammatory lesion in the DC animals and reduction following treatment of the animals with ASHW and MTX. (F) Similar efficacy of ASHW and MTX in reducing lesion score in the DC animal as a function of percentage (%) inhibition was determined. Values in the results are Mean ± SEM. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison t-test was used to calculate the statistical difference. Student unpaired t-test was used to calculate the statistical difference in comparison to MTX (p-value # ≤ 0.05; ** ≤ 0.01).