Positive first response from medical community...

This survey is part of a study to compare two different scoring systems commonly used by surgeons to assess the success of cartilage repair surgeries.

Understanding the cartilage repair experience from the patients’ perspective. by Karen Hambly BSc MCSP (Sports Scientist/Physiotherapist)

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In previous sections of this keynote, we have discussed options for repairing damaged cartilage in smaller cartilage defects. When the defect is large then surgeons are turning to two much more sophisticated techniques - ACI and MACI.

Both of these techniques involve taking a small amount of healthy cartilage from the patient, sending it to a laboratory to be grown as a tissue culture and then returned to the patient for implant.

In ACI the defect is sealed over with a membrance sewn over the hole, and the cells are injected behind the membrane as a suspension.

I am constantly amazed by some of the experiences that people tell me they go through when they go to see their physio after they have had articular cartilage repair. A couple of classics that I come across way too frequently are -

“When I told my physio that I had ACI surgery they said – ‘so you’ve had your ligament repaired’!” or 

It wasn’t until I found myself in the position of being a prospective patient for articular cartilage repair that I decided to do a bit of reading around the area. Now you may think that as I am a fully qualified chartered physiotherapist that I should have known all about articular cartilage problems and how they are managed. The reality of things is that the only time in the whole of my physio training that articular cartilage was ever mentioned was in relation to osteoarthritis.