184 BIOLOGICAL RESURFACING AT THE KNEE FOR YOUNGER AND MIDDLE AGED PATIENTS WITH CONCOMITANT PROCEDURES, PRELIMINARY RESULTS.

Abstract

To present our experince in the use of different autologous cartilage transplantation techniques with concomitant procedures.

The last 30 months we treated 42 patients with chondral defect at the knee. Their mean age was 34 y.o. and the men to women ratio was 28/14. The defect concerned the medial femoral condyle(20), the lateral femoral condyle (14), the medial facet of the patella (4) while 4 patients demonstrated chodral defects in both femoral condyles. The mean area of the defect was 6.5 cm2 while defects measuring below 2.5 cm2(10) were treated arthroscopically using microfracturing trechnique. 20 cases were treated for chondral defect alone using either MACI or ACT-3D technique for chondrocyte transplantation and in 12 cases there was a combination of cartilage transplantation with alignment correction procedures. Finally a modified rehabilitation protocol was used.

All the cases were performed uneventfully. We assesed the patients 12 months post-operatively using the LYSHOLM & GILLQUIST score, FAFA kai Visual Analogue Pain Score. The clinical outcome was excellent, the follow-up using ‘MRI showed adequate filling of the defect without significant bone swelling.

Our early results using the method are more than encouraging. The method continues to evolve and is very challenging. As far as we know this the first publication concerning 3rd generation autologous chondrocyte transplantation in both femoral condyles silmutaneously