Can Cartilage Injuries Be Treated Without Surgery?

Yes, many people can live with cartilage defects without pain. If symptoms do show up, you can manage them without surgery by:

• Keeping body weight at or near your ideal weight
• Changing activities to avoid pain.
• Doing physical therapy.
• Taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medicine.
• Getting injections to relieve pain.

If these methods work, surgery might not be needed.

Surgical Treatments for Cartilage Injuries

If pain continues, you have recurrent swelling or if the knee locks, surgery might be necessary. Here are some common procedures:

1. Arthroscopy and Debridement: A small camera helps clean up the area and remove loose cartilage, if it’s not repairable.
2. Cartilage Repair Techniques:
   • Allograft: Using cartilage from a donor to fill in the damaged area.
   • Autograft: Taking cartilage from another part of your knee to repair the injury.
   • MACI- Matrix-aided chondrocyte implantation- is a procedure where we remove a small amount of your healthy cartilage during a first surgery and send it to a lab to grow more. We return during a second surgery and place this cartilage membrane of your own cartilage cells into your cartilage defect.
   • Microfracture: Making small holes in the bone to encourage new cartilage growth, much less commonly performed today.

Long-Term Effects of Untreated Cartilage Injuries

If not treated, a cartilage injury can lead to:

• More damage in the knee.
• Increased risk of developing osteoarthritis (a painful condition caused by cartilage breakdown).
• Chronic pain and limited movement, making it hard to do everyday activities.