Regeneration of Cartilage Surfaces (On the Horizon from the ORS‪)‬

Injuries to hyaline articular cartilage elicit considerable musculoskeletal morbidity; on arthroscopic examination, these injuries are typically present in nearly 60% of knee joints. (1) The lack of neural innervation and the avascular morphology in hyaline articular cartilage compromises its ability for self-repair. Current treatments of focal defects include microfracture (chondroplasty), (2) autologous chondrocyte implantation, (3) osteochondral autograft transfer system, and mosaicplasty. Microfracture, the current standard treatment, involves penetration of subchondral bone to induce bleeding from the marrow stroma; however, this repair yields fibrocartilage, which is mechanically and biochemically inferior to native hyaline cartilage. Overall, these treatments were developed to relieve pain, restore function, and delay the progressive deterioration of cartilaginous lesions.