preview

Articular Cartilage Injuries

Decent Essays

1. Title of the article: Basic Science and Treatment Options for Articular Cartilage Injuries

2. Explain the purpose(s) of this article:
- The ultimate purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the different treatment options for articular cartilage lesions. The authors characterize the treatment objectives as palliative, reparative, or restorative, noting that the various treatment options can overlap in terms of objective. The options described by the authors, along a continuum of palliative to restorative, include arthroscopic lavage and debridement, microfracture, autologous chondrocyte implantation, and osteochondral grafting. In order to optimize reader understanding of the indications and contraindications for each of the treatment options, the authors also include a brief anatomical review of articular cartilage, which includes the grading and epidemiology of chondral lesions, as well as the …show more content…

Articular cartilage is organized into four different layers/zones: superficial (tangential), middle (transitional), deep (radial), and calcified. The cellular structure of each layer is slightly different and corresponds to its role and type of force that it can withstand; the superficial layer has parallel alignment to withstand shear forces, the middle layer begins to resist compressive forces with a more oblique orientation, and the deep layer has a perpendicular alignment that largely resists compression. The calcified layer is where the cartilage connects to bone tissue, and is separated from the deep layer by the tidemark, which is a region of parallel-oriented fibers to reduce shear force. Since grading of chondral lesions (commonly on a Grade 0-4 scale) is based upon the depth of injury, it is important to understand these specialized

Get Access