megaOATS?

[Beauzer]

I'm still in limbo over what the right course of action is to fix my knee.  One of the thoughts was doing what my OS called a megaOATS.  Now, I understand the usual OATS, where you stick little plugs of bone and cartilage into the areas where the damage is.  But he was talking about carving off a large hunk of non-weightbearing surface and transplanting it elsewhere.  Has anybody had anything like this or know anybody who has?

Danielle

[brattkids2]

I have never heard of a mega-OATS. I have had the OATS proceedure and was told if the areas are too large that something else should be considered. OS explained it like this you have a large lesion already if they were to take a large graft from somewhere wlse there would be another large lesion that would cause you pain. Most large lesions will not heal on their own. Some of the small ones will especially if there is healthy cartilage around them. like a small hole created where they take the plug.

My first proceedure was done with a synthetic material. My lesions were too large for a traditional OATS. I had 3 lesions two of themon the lateral side and one on the medial side (this was was down to the bone with bone damage) 1.7cmx1.7cm and the other two were just a bit larger. The area that didnt fill in was then done with a traditional OATS it was 9mm in size. I now have problems with where they took the plug from as the only place they could get a graft from was the trochlea and now the patella bugs the site.

One of the options for larger sites is ACI where they take some healthy cartliage cells, send them to a lab to grow you a graft, and then place the graft on the bad spot. (this is what my synthetic material was like)

I would ask your OS of all the complications of this so called mega OATS. You may be better off with a different proceedure.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!!!

Paulette