Tendons transmit muscles forces to bone and allow movement. It is a complexorganized tissue, composed by few cells and an extracellular matrix (collagen fibers, elasticfibers, and a ground substance. Fibers give to tendon its elastic characteristic and resistanceand ground substance its viscosity.Tendinopathy is a medical problem associated with sport, with a high morbidity whichaffects performance. It is an association of degeneration, pain, stiffness and local edema.Imaging can be used to quantify and qualify the changes in the morphology of the tendon.The tendon homeostasis and physiopathology remain poorly understood, but a change at theconnections of the fibrils, decreasing its strength.The purpose of this study is: development of surgical model of induced localtendinopathy in goats with clinical follow up transposable for humans and horses;development of a device to evaluate the mechanical properties of tendons, and demonstratethat the goat is a good experimental animal model for the study of tendinopathy. The studyhas been performed in 84 days with a clinical follow up, US imaging and tensile test.Goat is an ungulate easy to house and handle. The modified splitting allows easy andreproducible resection of some tendon fibers with an identifiable lesion in US imaging andclinical symptoms. The variability of mechanical behavior is not correlated with"macroscopic" aspects (weight, animal morphology or cross sectional area), thus reducing theeffective is difficult. However, our model appears in the state, can be used to evaluatetreatments for human and horse’s tendinopathy. The development of our model couldstrengthen its relevance.
