How many types of cartilage transplants are there?
There are at least 20 or 30 transplant options in practice around the world. One way is to harness the body’s ability to repair cartilage is called an arthroscopic microfracture where a surgeon creates a small hole in the bone to make the bone bleed into the surrounding area. The bone has primitive cells that heal to form normal cartilage. If that fails, the patient qualifies for a local transplant called an osteochondral autograft, which is comparable to a hair-plug transfer. The surgeon takes cartilage and bone from the healthy part of the joint and moves it to the damaged area. A highly advanced and FDA-approved cartilage regeneration technique is called an autologous cartilage cell implantation. Cells are harvested from the patient’s cartilage, cultured and re-implanted in the damaged area to repair and restore the cartilage. For major defects, there are cartilage and meniscus transplants (the meniscus is a C-shaped piece of cartilage in the knee) from organ donors. How many cartil
