Background: The degenerative and inflammatory diseases of the musculoskeletal system have shown a significant increase over the past decades. Despite of the improved diagnostic techniques, reaching for the correct diagnosis in time still could be challenging. Therefore, there is a growing need for new methods to further improve the diagnostic procedures and help to select the most sufficient treatment. Aims: The purpose of the study was to evaluate whether there is a significantly different pattern in comparison of the thermal denaturation characteristics of the degenerative or inflamed collagen samples with the healthy human connective tissue. Here we compare our results - based on the thermal analyzes of collagen structures from 13 different types of pathologic or healthy human tissue samples - with the data recently published in the literature. Materials and methods: Different types of ligaments, connective tissues, joint capsules, arthritic or septic hyaline cartilage were collected from pathologic or healthy human origin. The thermal denaturation of the samples was monitored by a SETARAM Micro DSC-II calorimeter. Results: DSC scans demonstrated significant differences between the pathologic and healthy groups, indicating that the thermal stability of the examined degenerative or inflamed pathologic samples is significantly different. In cases of degenerative samples, the enthalpy was significantly decreased, while the melting temperature showed an increase. Contrary, inflamed samples demonstrated a significant increase in the enthalpy and the melting temperature was decreased. Conclusion: DSC analysis could be a clinically relevant method in the diagnosis of different types of musculoskeletal diseases. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.