KNEE ARTHRITIS - General principles of managing Osteoarthritis of the knee :

Experimental Cartlidge Replacement? - - Posted by Martin_Harrell (Martin_Harrell), 18 October 2002

Hi everyone,

  I am new here to the forum and have a question. My Father-in-law was told about some kind of experimental cartlidge replacement that has helped a lot of people avoid a total knee replacement. Does anyone have some information about this or could someone point me in the right direction?

 My name is Martin Harrell and my e-mail address is freedomxl@myexcel.com

 Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

 Marty

Posted by chr12t1ne (chr12t1ne), 18 October 2002

Sounds like ACI see arthritis etc, though there are other options such as mosaicplasty.  ACI is not considered here in UK for >50 yrs so your father-in-law may not qualify.  This is because this procedure relies on harvesting the patient's own cells and beyond 50 they dont behave in quite the same way.  If he is under 50 then this could be a good option, I had this done Dec 01 to delay the TKR I am hoping for at least 10 yrs, though no promises have been made!!  I had 2 grafts on the patella, 1 on the med fem cond and micro fracture on the trochlea and so far things look pretty promising!  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  Good luck S.
Posted by Martin_Harrell (Martin_Harrell), 18 October 2002

Thank you for your reply. I wish you the best of luck in the healing process. I will delve into the ACI angle to see what I can find. Please keep me posted as of your progress if you wouldn't mind.

Thanks again,

Marty
Posted by admin (The KNEEguru), 30 October 2002

Don't forget there is whole lot of information on the main KNEEguru site as well:

http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/html/step_06_arthritis/step_06_tackling.html

KNEEguru
Posted by troyl39 (thomas), 4 November 2002

you can read the post about cartilcel inplants that may help some
Posted by Netty (Netty), 21 November 2002

I was talking to a lady last night who had recently had cartlidge surgery. She was the 1st person to be done in this town and she said they took some of her cartlidge and got it to grow somehow and then implanted it back into her knee. Now she's on crutches for a fair while until the graft grows. I should have been listening better to get more of the detials

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