Knee donor-site morbidity after mosaicplasty - a systematic review

Andrade R, Vasta S, Pereira R, et al. · Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics

Pooled donor-site morbidity was 5.9% when treating knee defects and 19.6% for ankle defects; in knee-to-knee procedures the commonest complaints were crepitation (31%) and patellofemoral disturbance (22%). Morbidity did not correlate with defect size, plug number or plug size.

Population

1,726 patients (21 studies) donating osteochondral plugs from the knee for knee or ankle defects

Intervention

Mosaicplasty donor-site harvest

Comparator

None

Limitations

Declares itself 'Level IV, systematic review of Level I-IV studies'. Underlying studies heterogeneous and mostly retrospective, and the reported morbidity rates vary enormously between them — 0% to 92% for knee-to-knee and 0% to 55% for knee-to-ankle, against the 5.9% and 19.6% pooled figures. The authors name incomplete donor-site reporting as a concern in its own right.