A limited number of papers have been published before on the subject of thermal analysis of normal and degenerative human hyaline cartilage. They have concluded that structural manifestation of osteoarthritis appears as a remarkable change of thermal stability of hyaline cartilage samples. The reported data on the calorimetric enthalpy changes proved to be inconsistent. Previous thermoanalytical studies used cadaver samples for the investigation as normal human hyaline cartilage. All samples that were extracted for this study were obtained during live surgeries. A new protocol had to be established before the detailed investigation could be performed. With the rise of temperature, an endothermic reaction was observed in all cases. The enthalpy change of the process initiated by the temperature change showed marked difference between the normal and pathological groups. The use of differential scanning calorimetry as part of thermal analysis was a reliable method for differentiating normal hyaline cartilage from degenerated samples. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.