Cartilage Reconstruction

Cartilage injury is devastating in a knee due to ensuing pain and degeneration. One day an ability to reliably lay down new cartilage, perhaps with cartilaginous stem cells will be a holy-grail treatment, but this remains an elusive fantasy today.

Cartilage reconstruction is not necessary or even viable in many cartilaginous problems of the knee, but select situations can be fruitful.

These include recent osteochondral injuries from the patella or femur after a patella dislocation, some rare cartilage injuries in other injury patterns, or for incidences of osteochondritis dissecans.

Techniques to manage these include direct repair of the injured cartilage, pasting a blended mix of the patient’s own cartilage, taking a plug of cartilage from an adjacent unimportant area (ie. that does not take weight), or using a donor cartilage plug.