Are there roles for arthroscopic surgery in osteoarthritis/hip resurfacing?
Dr. Patel: With pain from osteoarthritis in any joint, we as surgeons are not certain if the pain is coming from mechanical damage, or if it’s just the bone to bone contact. There’s no way to be precisely sure how much pain is coming from a torn meniscus, how much from arthritis. Regarding knee resurfacing, if we think the resurfacing procedure has value, then arthroscopic surgery is less invasive than open surgery. Knee1: What about Cartilage repair? Dr. Patel: Well, there are tough questions to answer for cartilage repair. Technical questions are: can you implant the cartilage cells? Technically we can do it. The questions we have to ask are: who are the patients, what is the long-term benefit, do they grow actual cartilage cells? Right now all of these are being studied. Most doctors would not tend to implant cartilage cells if there is massive bone to bone contact, major instability in the knee, deformity, or if the patient is older. If there is an isolated lesion without instabili
