Microfracture, bone marrow concentrate shows good early results in treatment of focal lesions

Issue: January 2013

Researchers of this study found good results in patients with focal lesions of the condylar articular cartilage treated with arthroscopic microfracture and autologous bone marrow concentrate covered with either a collagen membrane or a polyglycolic acid/hyaluronan scaffold.

"The first clinical experience with single-stage covered microfracture and bone marrow concentrate (CMBMC) for focal cartilage defects in the knee suggests that it is safe, it improves the short-term knee function and that it has the potential to recreate hyaline-like cartilage,” the researchers stated in the abstract. “No significant difference was observed between [collagen] C-covered or [polyglycolic acid/hyaluronan] PH-covered CMBMC.

All 18 patients showed significantly improved International Knee Documentation Committee subjective score, Lysholm score, VAS score and median Tegner score at average 26-month follow-up, according to the abstract. Researchers noted no significant difference between the groups.

A macroscopic cartilage assessment at 12 months revealed one normal repair, one abnormal repair and seven nearly normal repairs, according to the abstract. The researchers also conducted a histological analysis and found a fibrocartilaginous repair in three lesions, a hyaline-like cartilage repair in two lesions and a mixture of both fibrocartilaginous and hyaline-like repairs in one lesion.

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Source:

Enea D. ICRS Newsletter. 2012;Winter:16:42.