Abstract— The aim of the paper is to furnish a new methodology to (i) define chemical and physical parameters used as references to distinguish between a healthy human bone tissue and the one affected by primary gonarthrosis and (ii) to enrich the base of knowledge used in the biomaterials field. The methodology pointed out is based on measurement techniques used for civil engineering materials. Therefore, it is possible to assess that the obtained results depend only by the material under test and not by the specific measurement method. Experimental results will be shown (i) to verify the suitability of the characterization method pointed out, and (ii) to allow the definition of parameters to evaluate the primary gonarthrosis diseases in human knees. Keywords— characterization, EDX analysis, measurement methods, primary gonarthrosis, SEM analysis, thermal analysis, XRD analysis,. I. INTRODUCTION ONARTHROSIS is a degenerative condition of knee joint with chronic and progressive course most frequently defined as changes involving articular cartilage damage (Fig.1), abnormal bone formation, reactive changes in synovial membrane and pathologic synovial fluid [1]. Knee arthrosis is the most common type of arthrosis [2]-[4]. Arthrosis can be primary and secondary. Pathogesis of primary degenerative changes in articular cartilage is based on loss of proteoglycans and decomposition of collagen skeleton of intracellular matter. In addition there is also “material fatigue” [5]-[6]. The site of initial damage remains unknown. Nowadays, it is known that in the process development, reparative reaction “This work was partially supported by the Italian grant RIDITT, project “DI.TR.IM.MIS Diffusione e trasferimento di tecnologie ad imprese nel settore delle misure”, funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development”. Francesco Lamonaca is with the Dept. of Computer Science, Modelling, Electronic and System Science, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), ITALY. (tel. +39 0984 494244, e-mail: flamonaca@deis.unical.it). Luigi Maxmilian Caligiuri is with the Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), ITALY. (max.caligiuri@gmail.com). Maria Riccio is with the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy. (riccio@unisannio.it). Monica Vasile is with the Medical School, Ovidius University Costanta, ROMANY. (monicavasile@hotmail.com). Alfonso Nastro is with the Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), ITALY. (alfonso.nastro@unical.it). of chondrocytes expressed by increase of synthesis of the main collagen types (type II, in lower degree types IX, VI, XI) and also of proteoglycans, is the primary event, at cell level [1]. The final result of the pathological process in gonarthrosis is imbalance between synthesis of articular cartilage and damage leading to its loss. Each cause or process inducing cartilage degradation exerts some effects on the occurrence and progression of gonarthrosis. Gonarthrosis is diagnosed on the basis of clinical and radiological examinations. Magnetic resonance, bone scintigraphy and arthroscopy, are also of importance. Some of these examinations depends on the pain level declared by the patients, some other from the expertise of the clinicians reading the radiological images. In the paper objective measurement method to detect knee bone affected by gonarthrosis is presented [8]-[11]. It is based on the application of the Thermo Gravimetric (TG), Differential Thermo Gravimetric (DTG) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) analysis to some milligram of knee bone. In order to validate the information retrieved by thermal analysis, the different crystallinity of the bone samples are evaluated by X-ray powder diffraction techniques (XRD) [12], while further information on their chemical composition is achieved by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) [13], and X-Ray dispersive analysis (EDX)[14]. These analysis are well known and deeply applied for engineering materials [15]-[17]. The main advantages of using Measurement Techniques for the Objective Diagnosis of Primary Gonarthrosis F. Lamonaca, L.M. Caligiuri, M. Riccio, M.Vasile, and A.Nastro G Fig.1 The loss of cartilage results in increasing stiffening and deformation of the joint [7] INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING Volume 8, 2014 ISSN: 1998-4510 184