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I just wanted to add my 2 cents to this board. I am 16 weeks post op from cartiform to the patella. Some of you may be already following me in the post op diary section. I had an MRI at 14 weeks and the cartiform was already of equal thickness compared to the rest of my patella cartilage. It is also well integrated to my subchondral bone which is perhaps the most important thing.Although I am still in the early stages of recovery, I am very happy with the results thus far. I just biked over 80 miles last week and wasn't even reminded of my knee problem. I even cheated a little bit and jogged through a crosswalk last week pain free.I've been saying this since I've been on this website and I'll say it again. Cartiform is one of the best treatments out there for focal defects. Denovo and ACI are 3rd class treatments at best. They do not have the required bony component to ensure good integration to your subchondral bone. Not to mention the repair tissue does not maintain the normal 3 layered architecture of hyaline cartilage like cartiform does.
I'm with willrunagain on this debate. I had cartiform almost two years ago (in March) and I have loved it. I have no pain in my patella where I used to. I had it scoped about 4 months ago and in the pictures you can see where there is definitely cartilage where there didn't used to be any before. I took a risk getting the surgery done as I was maybe Dr. Davidson's 5th patient at that time for cartiform. I have liked it so much I planned to get it done on my left knee. The problem was I had damage in the trochlear groove and the cartiform would probably have gotten torn up. Insurance wouldn't authorize both cartiform and ftg arthrosurface inlay at the same time so the plan is to get the inlay now, then have the option of getting cartiform in the patella down the road. Although going through two major surgeries on one knee would positively suck. And that's only if my new insurance company will even cover cartiform.