Cartilage surgery -
Dr. Michael Lehmann

What surgical procedures are recommended for cartilage damage?

Cartilage damage can in many cases nowadays be treated with surgery, with excellent results. Just which procedure is appropriate in each individual case should always be decided by an experience physician.

What can be done about slight cartilage damage?

Where there is slight damage, joint debridement, or cartilage smoothing, can be useful. It can be carried out at the same time as a joint washout.

If the defects measure around 2 square centimetres, micro-fracturing can be used.

If the bone is also affected, damage measuring around 3 square centimetres can be repaired with mosaic-plasty, while cartilage cell transplants are an option for treating damage measuring up to 10 square centimetres.

To achieve satisfactory successes, it can be important, depending on the findings, to combine the procedures with surgical correction of the leg axis or perform reconstruction of the cruciate ligaments or meniscus. This way, one-sided stresses in the joint can often be reduced and new cartilage damage prevented.

Endoprosthesis for severe osteoarthritis

Where biological procedures (micro-fracturing, mosaic-plasty, cartilage cell transplant, etc.) are no longer an option due to the severity of the osteoarthritis, an artificial joint, known as an endoprosthesis, can represent a practical treatment option.