This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Long-term follow-up highlights the durability and efficacy of ACI

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) can provide high rates of patient satisfaction and maintain good outcomes at long-term follow-up, according to a Swedish study presented here.

“We can say that ACI is an effective and desirable option for large full-thickness chondral lesions mid-term,” Haris S. Vasiliadis, MD, PhD, said during his presentation at the 8th World Congress of the International Cartilage Repair Society, here. “It has good results even 10 to 20 years after the implantation, even for difficult cases where ACI is performed as a salvage procedure.”

Vasiliadis and his colleagues studied 224 patients who underwent ACI performed with the periosteum. The patients were 33.5 years old at the time of surgery, and 26% had multiple lesions. The overall average lesion size was 5.2cm².

The investigators assessed the patients using the Lysholm, Tegner-Wallgren and Brittberg-Peterson scores preoperatively and at 3 years and 10 to 20 years postoperatively. The study group had an average follow-up of 13.8 years.

The investigators found a statistically significant improvement in all of the outcome measures at 3 years compared to baseline results. A comparison of mid-term to long-term results showed that the Lysholm score changed from 73.64 to 69.49. The Tegner-Wallgren score shifted from 8.4 at 3-year follow-up to 8.2 at long-term follow-up, and the Brittberg-Peterson score moved from 31.29 to 40.87.

At long-term follow-up, 73% of the patients reported that they felt better or the same compared to the 3-year follow-up. In addition, 92% of the patients reported that they would have the procedure again, he said.

Reference:

Vasiliadis HS, Concaro S, Brittberg M, et al. Autologous chondrocyte implantation: 10-20 years follow-up. Paper #15.3.1. Presented at the 8th World Congress of the International Cartilage Repair Society. May 23-26, 2009. Miami.