Joint cartilage shows a very limited capacity for self-repair.
Full thickness cartilage injuries penetrating the subchondral
bone plate do show self-repair, but the repair cartilage
consists mostly of fibrous cartilage. One out of ten patients
seeking medical help due to knee pain has a significant
cartilage injury. Approximately 50 % of these have a lesion that
would benefit from and is suitable for surgical treatment.
Development of new surgical strategies has introduced the use of
ex-vivo expanded chondrocytes implanted as a cell suspension
into the defect under a periosteal flap. The procedure requires
cartilage to be harvested from a low-weight bearing part of
joint, thereby creating a small but potentially harmful defect
in the cartilage. Results have been promising but few well-
organized randomised studies have been performed. Aims and
methods 1. Chondrocytes differentiate when cultured adhering to
plastic in a monolayer. Recent results suggest that for
chondrocytes to fully redifferentiate a three-dim