Tissue Repair Techniques of the Future: Options for Articular Cartilage Injury

Vladimir Bobic, MD

Medscape Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine eJourn. 2000;4(1)

Conclusion

"The ideal articular cartilage repair technology would be cheap, available off-the-shelf, deliverable arthroscopically, give rise to a durable well-integrated repair tissue, result in clinical improvement, eliminate or significantly postpone the need for arthroplasty, and be suited for both focal defects and degenerative joint disease. The technology under research and development today can only, for the time being, address a subset of this wish list. Despite the promise, there remains a considerable distance between where the technology is and where we want it to be. We expect that over the next decade the gap will continue to be narrowed. We also expect that over the next decade several new technologies, including autologous cultured chondrocyte implantation, tissue-engineered cartilage, growth factors and acellular matrices, will enter routine clinical usage." --Michael Ehrenreich, Techvest, LLC

(See www.techvestllc.com/conference/schedule.html for Techvest program, speakers, and abstracts.)