04
Treatments & Surgery
12 entriesThe surgical and procedural options for cartilage defects — what each one actually is, who it suits, and what the follow-up data says.
Marrow stimulation
Cell-based repair
- MACICultured chondrocytes on a membrane — the cell therapy that beat microfracture at 2 and 5 yearsStrong
- ICC / CEMTRO Cell (high-density ACI)Madrid's 5-million-cells-per-cm² variant of ACI, reported from a single centrePromising
- ACI through three generationsFrom periosteal flap to MACI — thirty years of chondrocyte implantationStrong
Scaffolds & grafts
- Agili-CA cell-free coral-derived scaffold with a large RCT behind it — including knees with mild OAPromising
- OATS / mosaicplastyPlugs of your own bone and living cartilage, moved into the defect — and the donor site they leaveStrong
- Fresh osteochondral allograftDonor cartilage on donor bone, with survivorship followed out to 25 yearsPromising
Alignment & offloading
Meniscus
- The meniscus, and what it does for cartilageThe load-spreading tissue between femur and tibia, and what the cartilage underneath does without itStrong
- Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy for a degenerative tearThe commonest operation in orthopaedics, and one of the very few that has been tested against a sham procedureNot supported
- Meniscus repairStitching the tear rather than trimming it — less arthritis later, more second operationsPromising
- Meniscal allograft transplantationA donor meniscus for a knee that has already lost its own — what the graft restores, and how much of it lastsPromising